Enterprise and Adventure/Holman, the Blind Traveller
HOLMAN, THE BLIND TRAVELLER.
The story of the life of James Holman, the blind traveller, is probably without a parallel in the history of enterprise. It might be supposed that total loss of sight would at least prove an insurmountable obstacle to adventure in uncivilized countries; but, seized with a passion for wandering almost amounting to a new sense, this extraordinary man not only determined on undertaking a journey alone, and chiefly overland, around the world, but actually accomplished a considerable portion of his project, only at length relinquishing it from causes over which he had no control.
Holman was an officer in the British navy, who had already had considerable experience of travelling in wild countries. Even since his blindness he had made a tour through France, Italy, and Switzerland, and had published an interesting account of his travels; but the difficulties of a journey in these countries were comparatively slight. It is hardly to be wondered at that Holman's friends regarded him as visionary and imprudent, and that he found it convenient to avoid their dissuasion by carefully concealing the extent of his plans. It was on the 19th of July, 1822, that he embarked in a schooner lying in the London Docks, and bound to St. Petersburg, with the ostensible motive of visiting the Russian empire; but with the real one, as he says, "if circumstances should permit, of making a circuit of the whole world." The schooner had not left the river Thames before he was enabled to give a striking proof of that readiness in using his other faculties, which went so far to compensate him for his affliction. It happened that the vessel was run into by a heavily-laden collier, and seriously damaged. During the confusion which attended the accident, Holman rushed from his berth to the helm, from which the steersman had fled, and at once made himself useful by complying promptly with the captain's rapidly-succeeding orders of "starboard" and "port." The captain, however, was entirely ignorant of the fact of his having a blind steersman until the trouble was over, and he observed, for the first time, that the man at the helm was a stranger standing in his night-shirt; but he became so well satisfied with the nautical skill of the volunteer seaman, as afterwards to permit him to steer the vessel in a fresh breeze.
When at sea, Holman had plenty of time to consider his plans, and the motives which determined him to pursue them in spite of his blindness. He knew well that the extraordinary delicacy of the sense of touch and hearing, and the quickness in drawing inferences common to the intelligent blind, enabled him to acquire ideas and gather information with far greater certainty than was commonly supposed to be possible. Occasionally he occupied himself in studying the geography of Russia, tracing his intended route with the finger. When in St. Petersburg he carefully concerted his plans, and spent some time in examining the city, which he describes with considerable minuteness, even giving an account of the structure and action of machinery in the large manufactories of that city. After spending the winter in St. Petersburg, he travelled by posts to, Moscow, which city he describes with the same spirit. It was not, however, until he quitted Moscow that the real difficulties of his journey began. "My situation," he says, "was now one of extreme novelty, and my feelings corresponded with its peculiarity. I was engaged under circumstances of unusual occurrence, in a solitary journey of several thousand miles, through a country perhaps the wildest on the face of the earth, and whose inhabitants were scarcely yet accounted within the pale of civilization, with no other attendant than a rude Tartar postilion, to whose language my ear was wholly unaccustomed; and yet I was supported by a feeling of happy confidence, with a calm resignation to all the inconveniences and risks of my arduous undertaking." Holman met with many adventures and suffered much hardship during his journey through Siberia, but in inhabited places he met with a great deal of hospitality and kindness. It was in the end of the year 1824, two years and a half after his departure in the little schooner from the London Docks, that he found himself at Irkutsk, in Asiatic Russia, the chief town of the government of that name, nearly four thousand miles east of St. Petersburg. He was now within a short distance of the Chinese frontier, and his ardent desire to enter China by a land journey appeared to be on the brink of being gratified, when an unforeseen accident suddenly put an end to his progress. He was sitting with the Governor-General, who had invited him to his house, when that functionary greatly surprised him by informing him that a military officer, a lieutenant of the feld-jagers, who had just arrived in that part from St. Petersburg, had been despatched by the emperor, on a special mission, to reconduct him to Europe. The governor, in explanation, added that his imperial majesty could not consent to Mr. Holman's embarking from or even proceeding into Kamtschatka, and was much concerned that he should have advanced thus far into Siberia, without that attendance which his affliction made necessary or any knowledge of the language, and that he had sent this officer for his protection, with instructions to accompany him on his return.
This intelligence, Holman says, acted almost as an electric shock upon him. He urged in vain that he required no protection, and only asked to quit Russia by the Chinese frontier, the period for starting for which had now arrived in consequence of the freezing of the Baikal lake; but he soon found reason to believe, that the emperor's pretended solicitude for his safety was not the real motive of his interference. The minute inquiries which he had been making on his route into the condition of the people in those remote parts of the empire had naturally attracted attention, and the fact of his being blind, had necessarily contributed to excite the wonderment of officials in the places he had passed through. From these circumstances, although he had been scrupulously careful to express no opinion on political matters, Holman did not doubt that a report had reached the emperor, who, with the habitual suspicion of despotic sovereigns, determined at once to have the traveller arrested, and conducted again to the western frontier. Little time was allowed for delay, and Holman being satisfied that further remonstrance was useless, made preparations for his journey. His narrative of his return, or rather flight, through Siberia in the midst of the rigours of a Russian winter, and while the thermometer was frequently at forty-seven degrees below freezing, is among the interesting portions of his work. The sledge in which he travelled side by side with the feld-jager was covered with a head like that of a cradle, with curtains in front to protect them from the weather, while the part which was extended over their feet formed a seat for the driver. On commencing their journey they gallopped with four horses abreast, and it appeared to be a great object with his companion to keep them up to that pace. In consequence on the first day of their journey one of the horses fell with fatigue, and was left for dead by the road-side, a prey to the wolves which swarmed in those inhospitable regions. The first night was intensely cold, the mercury freezing in the thermometer. At two hundred versts from the place of their departure, they were nearly driven over a precipice. Fortunately some fallen timber stopped the horses and saved them, but it took some time to extricate them from the snow, and the irregular part of the road into which they had been led. A few hours afterwards, while descending another mountain, a sadden turn in the road brought them in contact with a peasant's sledge, which upset and injured their carriage, and threw down two of their horses. As a return for his carelessness the feld-jager sprang from his seat and beat the driver unmercifully with his sabre; but these accidents were of frequent occurrence. Nevertheless, the feld-jager pressed on at a speed which allowed scarcely time for rest or refreshment. Holman began now to suffer much from fatigue and cold, although his costume had been carefully adapted to the rigorous climate. He wore two pairs of woollen stockings, with two pairs of far boots coming above the knees, the inner ones made of the skin of the wild goat, the outer ones of leather lined with fur, and having thick soles to them. Added to these, his legs were enveloped in a thick fur cloak. His body, besides his ordinary clothing, was covered over with a thickly wadded great coat, over which he wore an immense "shube," made of the skins of wolves, while the head was protected by a wadded cap. Notwithstanding all these precautions, however, the rigours of a climate more severe than anything known in Europe, added to his cramped position in the sledge, began to affect his health. It was at Ekaterinburg, where he was seized with a giddiness and faintness with which he fell from his chair, that he with difficulty prevailed on his keeper to permit him to rest, after calling in a government medical man to justify him from any charge of unnecessary delay, and after warning his charge to confine himself to the house.
The respite was brief, and again the sledge set forth with its two occupants through the snows and tempests of those inhospitable wastes. In this way they travelled nearly five thousand miles, and on the 5th of March arrived at the town of Lublin, and crossed the Vistula over masses of ice. Finally, having arrived at the Polish frontier, where, the feld-jager having delivered him his passport, they parted with mutual congratulations on their respective liberations. He had been eight days on the road since passing Moscow, with only a few hours' repose during that time; and as the vehicle he had hired drove into Cracow, the driver aroused him from a profound slumber. From Cracow he repaired to Vienna, returning once more by way of Prague, Toplitz, Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin, to Hanover and Bremen, whence he set sail for England. Holman finally landed in Hull, after an absence of three years.