David Herlihy

by The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer;His Mysterious Disappearance

  The valis often imposed yet another tiresome bother: an escort service involving one or more zaptiehs, or armed guards on horseback, charged with seeing the tourists safely to their day's destination. The Americans were told that this was for their own good, but they strongly suspected that the alleged dangers lurking ahead were often contrived or exaggerated in order to give these men gainful employment. Even when the lads had made no arrangements to hire a guide, they would often find one come morning, patiently lurking outside their inn.

  The cyclists naturally resented these unsolicited escorts, who they felt were, for the most part, foisted upon them. In addition to his daily wage, the zaptieh expected a sizable baksheesh, or tip, which the Americans were often reluctant to grant. Another frequent source of tension between the parties was the discordant gaits of their respective mounts. Whenever a poor stretch of road or steep ascent forced the cyclists to dismount, their guide would inevitably bring his horse to a halt, cast a look of disdain on his lowly charges, and roll up a cigarette. But when the road was favorable, or the horse tired, the wheels easily outraced the hooves. The desperate guide would either direct his horse off the road, in hopes of cutting the cyclists off at a pass, or yell at the top of his lungs for the tearing wheelmen to slow down.

  Despite these aggravations and the obvious language barrier, the cyclists generally got along tolerably well with their guides, to the point of sharing meals and conversations. In truth, the guides sometimes performed useful services, such as securing a room at an inn or clearing a pathway through a mob. On occasion, they even carried the young men and their gear on horseback across swollen streams, saving them time and trouble. Still, the cyclists reserved the right to exploit their superior speed over the long haul whenever an irresistible opportunity arose. More than once, they left their poor zaptieh in the dust and callously carried on without him.

  Another recurring agony was the miserable quality of the khans, or inns, in which they stayed. Invariably, their rooms were dirty and the cots unbearably hard. Worse, they frequently found themselves trying to sleep while unwanted company chatted, smoked, and gambled. On one occasion, they forcibly ejected a pesky young visitor, throwing him down the stairs. During his descent, he took a number of bystanders with him, prompting the irate owner to demand their own eviction. Hours later, the outcasts found themselves trudging into the cold, dark countryside. Mercifully, they came across a camp, where the astonished shepherds graciously offered them soup and makeshift beds for the night.

  At Sivas, a major crossroad city and the highest one in central Anatolia, Sachtleben suddenly came down with the telltale symptoms of typhoid fever, probably as a reaction to contaminated water imbibed at a roadside stream. For the first time in Asia, the travelers were compelled to make a prolonged stop. Fortunately, the American consul, Henry Jewett, provided comfortable quarters and saw to their needs. The missionary women, meanwhile, who were well accustomed to treating such an ailment, nursed Sachtleben back to health. Several weeks later, the young men were back on the road.

  In late June 1891, the cyclists entered the valley of the Euphrates in eastern Turkey. Their travails continued. Sachtleben's bicycle had been compromised while parked in Sivas, after a mule kicked out a few spokes. The cyclists had yet to find a blacksmith who knew how to repair a wheel. Near Kara-Hissar, they had to cross a fierce mountain stream while holding their bicycles above their heads.

  In Erzurum, they met with the vali to obtain papers authorizing their passage to Bayazid, the last city before the Persian border. The official was amazed by their progress and eager to interview them. He agreed to furnish the papers on two conditions. First, they had to stage a cycling demonstration for his benefit. Second, they had to take along a zaptieh to negotiate the treacherous Deli Baba Pass, which began fifty miles east of the city. The cyclists wisely agreed to both conditions. As the vali escorted them to the door, he cracked, "I shall be pleased to have your horses quartered and fed at government expense."

  A few days later, the Americans rode out to the outskirts of the city to give the promised exhibition. The vali came along atop a dashing white charger, surrounded by his entourage. On hand were several British and American diplomats and missionaries, equally determined to see the renowned safety bicycle. Adding to the international ambience were the two small flags the cyclists had installed on either side of their handlebars, one with stars and stripes and the other with a star and crescent. After the performance, the vali expressed his complete satisfaction and rode off. Sachtleben and Allen, meanwhile, bade farewell to their audience and proceeded east with their guard.

  Just before entering Persia, the cyclists indulged in a little diversion: climbing Mount Ararat, the towering landmark bordering the empires of the sultan, the czar, and the shah. No American had ever climbed that biblical peak, nor had anyone else in a good fifteen years. After spending a few excruciating days trudging through the snow, with a handful of hired guides and a bare minimum of supplies, they reached the seventeen-thousand-foot summit on July 4, 1891, exactly a year after they had arrived in Liverpool. They celebrated their feat, as well as the national holiday, by planting an American flag and firing four shots into the air.

  Resuming their ride, the cyclists encountered yet another persistent nuisance: shepherd dogs that chased after them and nipped at their heels. At times, their owners seemed to egg them on. The cyclists occasionally fended off the beasts by blasting their revolvers into the air. They used the same tactic to deter rock-throwing villagers.

  At last, the cyclists crossed into Persia. Spread out before them was a barren land with a few scattered trees and mountains looming on the horizon. Stopping at the first village, they met the local prince, known as a khan, who put them up for the night. They continued to clash with their imposed guides, called ferashes in the local vernacular. Other familiar bothers soon reestablished themselves, including the demanding mobs and miserable accommodations. They enjoyed, however, a richer diet of eggs, pomegranates, and pillao, a rice dish boiled in grease. Meanwhile, the temperature was rising, reaching as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the noonday sun.

  Five days after entering Persia, on July 12, the Americans rode into Tabriz, one of Persia's most important cities, located in the northwest corner of the country, just south of the Russian border. They took in its chief landmark, the Ark, an ancient fortified castle, and called on the crown prince who resided there. Although the city reputedly offered therapeutic air, Sachtleben came down with cholera, forcing yet another unplanned layover. Once again the local American missionaries provided him with aid and comfort.

  William Whipple, an agent for the American Bible Society and a resident of Tabriz, gave his impression of the cyclists in a letter to a New York newspaper dated August 10:

  They are plucky fellows and thoroughly American. We have had them as our guests for three weeks and have enjoyed talking to them concerning their route from Liverpool to here. It seems marvelous how they can travel through Turkey and Persia without the languages or guides. But they have managed to do so, and with little difficulty; also very cheaply. They have had to ford rivers, carrying their wheels over high mountain passes, etc., and live nativelike in every place they stop.

  Finally, in mid-August, the cyclists resumed their ride to Teheran. They closely followed the telegraph poles, spending one night in a German operator's room. One evening they were caught outdoors by the nightfall. They had to descend from their wheels and push them forward in pitch-blackness, as swarms of mosquitoes bit through their clothing. At last, they detected a passing caravan of camels and hastened toward the dimly lit lanterns. The drivers, shocked by the sudden appearance of the shadowy cyclists, drew their weapons and yelled. But the Americans managed to communicate their peaceful intentions and obtained permission to fall in line.

  Allen would later describe the ordeal:

  Footsore and hungry, with an almost intolerable thirst, we trudged along till morning, to the ding-dong, ding-dong of
the deep-toned camel bells. Finally, we reached a sluggish river, but did not dare to satisfy our thirst, except by washing out our mouths, and taking occasional swallows. We fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When we awoke the midday sun was shining, and a party of Persian travelers was bending over us.

  Reaching Teheran in late August, they tarried there while they awaited the Russian papers. Meanwhile, they socialized with the resident diplomats and missionaries. When fall arrived and they were still without papers, their anxiety began to rise as quickly as the temperature fell. Finally, the Russian minister persuaded them to continue east to Meshed (Mashhad), the holiest city of Islam after Mecca, where the Shiites buried their pious dead. When the papers arrived from St. Petersburg, the consul assured them, he would relay them by telegraph to his colleague in that holy city. The cyclists accepted the plan, and on October 4, 1891, they left the capital to embark on a six-hundred-mile pilgrimage.

  Once again, the young men faced desertlike conditions. This time, however, they found frequent stations where they could purchase food and juicy melons to quench their thirst. Along the way, they clashed with yet another innkeeper, who demanded a sum far greater than what they had laid down. When the cyclists attempted to make a getaway, the owner and his son grabbed hold of their wheels. The four men promptly tumbled to the ground, and a fierce scuffle ensued. The women in the adjacent harem, driven out by the melee, quickly separated the men and imposed a compromise settlement.

  As was often the case during their travels, the cyclists shifted effortlessly between hovel and palace from one day to the next. The following evening they called on the governor of Bostam, who had invited them to dinner. The servants rushed in benches to accommodate the foreigners, while the governor took his usual position on the carpet. Surrounded by an array of personal dishes piled high with delicacies, the attentive official looked after his guests even as he enjoyed his own meal. While the men conducted pleasant conversation, the official would occasionally fish out the choicest morsels of lamb kebob and stuffed grape leaves from his personal plates and pass them to his servants, who in turn delivered them to his guests.

  Two weeks after they had left Teheran, the cyclists at last reached Meshed. But night had already fallen, and the ancient city gates were shut tight. Allen described the eerie scene: "We knocked and pounded, but a hollow echo was our only response. At last the light of a lantern illuminated the crevices in the weather-beaten doors. A weird looking face appeared in the mid-way opening." The flustered guard explained to his unexpected visitors that the key had already been sent to the governor's palace. No one, but no one, could enter the city at this late hour.

  But the ever-resourceful Sachtleben would not take no for an answer. He hastily scrawled a note explaining their predicament, addressing it to the British consul residing behind the gate, who was expecting their arrival. He then folded the paper over a healthy inam—the Persian equivalent of baksheesh—and slipped the assemblage through the crack. The suddenly sympathetic guard dutifully delivered the message. The consul, in turn, quickly wrote a note of his own and had his servant run it over to the palace. Before long, the wheelmen could hear a squad of horsemen arriving behind the gate. After "a click of locks, a clanking of chains, and a creaking of rusty hinges," the massive doors swung open, revealing a large and wholly unexpected welcoming committee.

  The next day the young men called on the Russian consul general. His servants ushered the cyclists into his elegant home, where the consul himself awaited them, alongside his English wife dressed in a flowing gown. While serving her guests tea, she revealed that the governor of Askabad in Turkistan had indeed granted them permission to proceed thither. "The news lifted a heavy load from our minds," Allen recorded. "Our desert journey, therefore, had not been made in vain, and the prospect brightened for a trip through the heart of Asia."

  The wheelmen promptly took the military highway to Askabad, wending their way northwest. Although they were crossing a rugged mountain range, the road was so hard and smooth that they covered as many as seventy-five miles in a day, nearly double their average pace in Anatolia. In early November, after having logged some fourteen hundred miles in Persian territory, they finally reached the Russian border. There they blew past the bewildered officials. The bright city of Askabad, with some twenty thousand residents, offered the weary wheelmen a welcome dose of modern civilization.

  The next day the governor, Aleksei N. Kuropatkin, held a dinner in honor of the American visitors. He assured his guests that they could continue on toward Siberia, but he implored them to take the new trans-Caspian railway as far as Samarkind, some six hundred miles distant, so as to avoid the interlying desert. Feeling pinched for time and in little mood for more scorching conditions, the cyclists gratefully accepted his proposition.

  Along the way, the cyclists stopped in Bukhara, where the curious locals besieged them. At Samarkind, they found a delightfully exotic Oriental city filled with blue domes, minarets, and the ruins of ancient palaces and tombs. In the noisy and crowded native quarters, men with white turbans strolled about, socializing and bartering with street vendors. The newly constructed Russian quarter, in contrast, boasted broad and quiet boulevards lined with comfortable houses. After a pleasant week's stay, the cyclists remounted their bicycles and headed along the highway to Tashkent, 180 miles distant.

  Four days later, at the end of November, they entered the capital of Turkistan, a major military base and a sprawling city of 100,000, including some of the czar's least-favored relatives. Digging in for the long winter, they secured lodging with a German-speaking Russian businessman. They quickly found themselves enjoying surprisingly pleasant circumstances. Their host pampered them with hearty meals and a steady flow of vodka. And thanks to his high standing, the cyclists joined the city's party circuit and impressed the local elites with their intellects and broad knowledge of world affairs.

  Of course, the lads still had plenty of time on their hands. To make the most of it, they took Russian lessons and patronized the local theater and opera house. They occasionally visited the popular military halls, where their peers frequently gathered to drink, smoke, banter, and play cards. Allen observed with a strong hint of disapproval: "Drunkenness, gambling, and social laxity have followed upon the introduction of western morals and culture." Some standards, however, remained intact, as the young men unhappily discovered one spring morning while cycling in a park. A vigilant policeman stopped their progress and castigated them for exposing their kneecaps in public.

  During their hiatus, Sachtleben somehow managed to squeeze in a round trip to London—spending a collective month on trains. While there, he ordered new parts for their bicycles, including seats, chains, and chain oil. Fearing that the supplies would not arrive in Tashkent before their departure, he had them shipped to Tomsk, a city in Siberia through which he expected to pass sometime in late spring. The cyclists' friends in Tashkent had all but persuaded them to abandon the mad idea of crossing China and to take instead a more northern route across Siberia, to Vladivostok, where they could board a steamer bound for America.

  At last, May arrived, and the roads out of Tashkent were finally passable. The cyclists were ready to roll for a third season, and they were determined to reach the Pacific coast before the next winter set in. After bidding heartfelt goodbyes to their host and friends, they headed toward Vernoye (now Almaty), a remote outpost some 250 miles northeast of Tashkent and a gateway into Siberia.

  The cyclists clipped along the barren and boundless road traversing a rugged steppe, averaging about seven miles an hour. "With the absence of landmarks," Allen lamented, "you never seem to be getting anywhere." They frequently encountered bemused horsemen, who invariably challenged them to a race. Once, Sachtleben crashed full speed into a horse. He vaulted over the handlebars and dislocated an arm. The sympathetic onlookers, after jerking his limb back into its socket, fashioned a sling to keep it in place. Not entirely satisfied with the remedy, the travelers stopp
ed at the next village to consult the local physician. She turned out to be an old blind woman "of the faith-cure persuasion." After soothing Sachtleben's pain with her deft massaging, she served up slices of bread with prayers inscribed in the butter coating.

  At Vernoye, a French engineer persuaded the cyclists that they could still cross China after all, if their papers proved to be in order. He suggested that they head east to Kuldja (Yining), a Chinese city just over the border. There they could ask the local Russian consul if their papers issued in London would admit them into China. At the same time, they could grill the local Catholic missionaries to determine the feasibility of a foray into the Gobi Desert. Should they decide against proceeding into China, they could easily make their way back to the Siberian highway and resume the northern route. The cyclists decided to follow that plan.

  On June 4, 1892 (the same day Lenz left New York City), after having covered more than one thousand miles of Russian territory, the cyclists crossed the border river Ili. Approaching Kuldja, they were detained at the customhouse by the chief Chinese official. "Putting on his huge spectacles," Allen recalled,

  he read aloud the visa from the Chinese minister in London. His wonderment was increased when he read that such a journey was being made on the "foot-moved carriages," which were then being curiously fingered by the attendants. Our garments were also minutely scrutinized, especially the buttons. Meanwhile, our caps and dark-colored spectacles were taken from our heads and passed around for each to try on, amid much laughter.

  Settling into the city's Russian quarter as guests of the Russian consul, the Americans braced themselves for a long lull. Regardless of where they went next, they would need to have their bicycle parts redirected to Kuldja at once, for their wheels were no longer functional without repairs. Indeed, they were in dire need of new tires, axles, ball bearings, rims, and spokes. The lads telegraphed the chief of police in Tomsk and asked him to forward their package to Kuldja. Still, they knew it would be some time before their goods arrived.