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1 2 3

4 5 6

SPOET

IN THB

CEIMEA AND CAUCASUS

tOSDOS : PUISTKD BY

SrOTTlHWOOlIB AM) (O., KKW-HTHKET SQUAUJB

A.ND I'AIILIASIKST 6TUKET

SPORT

THE CKIMEA AND CAUCASUS

CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY, F.R.G.S.

LATE nuiTISII VICE-CONSUL AT KEUTCH

LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET

^ubliflfetrs in ©rbinara to ^tr gtajtsfn i\t Qmti
1831

All thj/ils rvstivi'U

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

SPORT I\ THE nilMKA.

Outfit— The droshky— A merry party— The Straits of Kertch—
The fltoppe— Wild-fowl — (!rops— The Malos-'I'lio ' Sturrio
Metchat ' -Game— Tscherkess grey hoiinda— Stalking bustards
—A picnic— Night on the steppe

iv\<;k

CHAPTER II.

CRASNOI LAIS.

frozen sea— Swarms of wild-fowl— The Indo-Europoan tele-
graph—Sledging on the Azov— A desolate scene— 'J'amau—
Journey inland— Tumeruk — Hotels- A dangerous sleep-
Foxes— Wolves- A hasty retreat— Ekaterinodar- Supper in
the forest of Crasnoi Lais— An exciting night's sport— Driving
the forest— (^s.sack beaters— Wild doer— Other game— The
bag— Itations of vodka— A Cossack orgy— Vulpine sagacity
— Wolf stories — Return to Kertch

CHAPTER III.

ODESSA AND MISKITCIIEE.

Mountaineers and Shikarees— Outfit— Journey from London to
Odessa— Snipe-shooting on the Dnieper —A drunken yera-
stchik- A collision— Prince VorontzofT-Aloupka- Yalta—
Livadia and Orianda-Miski tehee lake— A Tartar butcher-
Native hovels— A shooting party on the lake— A dreary
tivouac

CONTENl'S.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RED FOREST AND BLACK SEA COAST.

Joiiriii'v to 'luintvn — Downpour on tliesteppt" — Tscherkess bourkas
— LoiifT-tiiilod liorsos — Abaenco of cultivation — The Moujiks
— Causca of political discontent in ItuHaia — Veneration for the
Czar — Clienpeninp supplies — A lUissian writer on Isnplish-
wonien — Post stations— A terrible trajfedy — Hotela — Ekate-
rinodar — The fair — Russian tea — Uussian police — Bivouack-
inff with Cossack foresters — Exciting sport — Shooting a white
boar — Sad disappointment — Phea.sant-shooting— A Cossack
colonel — An execrable journey — ('ancasian women — Great
oonsumjjtion of supplies — In a ( 'ossack saddle — Mineral
springs — A scorcliing bath — Lotus-eaters — Incidents of the
road — An insolent Tartar — Parting

PA OF.

m»

CJ>

CHAPTER V.

IlEIMANS DATCII.

I)iiap.«e — Tscherkess emigrants — By the sea-shore — Superb
scenery — Drunken guides — A ('ossack station — Bears — Take
possession of a ruined villa — Hiding our provisions — Wild
swine -Astray in the jungle — A rough breakfast — Boars in
lilo A uiisslire — Forest fruit — Lose our horses — A panther
— Night-watch — Shooting in the dark — On the trail — Btirbv
— A friendly Cossaclc — Deserted by my servants .

!).'{

CHAPTER VI.

COLOVINSKY.

Lunch in the forest — Picturesque riding — A spill — Telegraph
shanty at Golovinsky — Robinson Crusoe — Native guns —
Tpcks of game — Multitudes of pheasants — Paucity of native
hunters — Tscherkess mocassins — Experiences of forest life —
Killing a bear — Cooking him— Another bag — A lost chance
— An«:dotes of * Michael Michaelovitch ' — Shooting n boar .

110

COXT/:XTS.

C If AFTER Vir.

DENSE COVERTS.

r.w.K

Unsuccessful sport-Bruin nnd Stepan-lJInck bread and onions
-Forest music — Mosquitoes — Ticks and other insects-
llruin's fondness for honey— Butterflies— Our lard.-r-Narrow
escape of Stepan - Unlucky days-Watcl.in}^ for swiiie-
Otters— A cold vigil— An exaap -.ating march . . . j^jo

CHAPTER VIII.

HUNTING WITH DOOS.

lielitting — Our monprrels — Shipping our spoils — Visitors —
Stepan's yarns— The hedgehog— Legend of the bracken— 1 he
Euxine in a fury-Trebogging— Traces of Tscherkess vill gts
— ICnorraous boars-Their feeding grounds— Lose a bjai-
Inipenetrable thickets hiding the proximity of big game— A
rare day's sport— Sliooting in the moonlight-Au expedition
—Fever— Precautions against it — Unsuccessful sport and
hard fare

145

CHAPTER IX.

RETURN TO KERTCII.

lieturn to Ileimans Datch-Bears-Stepan s shooting apparatus
—Journey to Duapse— A delightful dinner— Interview wit i
the Governor- Insects-German farm-A dangerous ad-
venture—A wedding supper— Leave Duapse for I'lkaterinodur
—Knmsky fair— Russian rouglis- Peasant women— A slu)W
booth— A hazardous road — Inexpensive tiavelling— Ekate-
rinodar— JoWe d:h6te at the Petersburg hotel— The treasury
— Droshky-racing— A beaten rival-Caucasian fish— Arrival
at Kertch

l(i5

Till

tiKvr/uX rs.

CHAPTER X.

TIKLIS.

Tlie liiidSD-Tin-kish Wnr — Siikhoum — Alleged abundance ofganui
Poti — My follow-travoUers — Sport in Kutuis— Arrival in
Tillis — Hotels and other IbutureH of the town — Tho British
<'on8iil — ( h-gan-grindera in requout — A ' happy day'— Drink-
ing habits — Native wines — German settlers — Shooting expe-
dition — A caravan — Karitis steppe — A lawless country-
Fevers — Antelope-hunting — An unpleasant adventure: run-
iiing for dear life — A Avouuded antelope — The lions of Tillis
— Museum and bazaar — Schoolboys — Prevalence of uniforms
and orders — Phenomena of Russian life — Buying a travelling
pass — Professor Bryce's ascent of Ararat ....

r.MiK

CHAPTER XL

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

Start from Tiflis — My yemstchik — Trr.velling carts — Caucasian
road-mukers — ( 'amel caravans — On tho bleak steppe — Persian
hawking — Subterranean dwellings — Shooting at Kariur —
]']lizabetpol — An execrable journey — Hawks and starling —
Jknditti — Curing official corruption at Tiflis — Goktchai — A
wearying day's sport — Fear of highwaymen — My guide, AUai
— Arrival at Gerdaoul — Hospitable Lesghians

231

CHAPTER XII.

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS,

Gerdaoul — Shooting partridges — Native wine-vaults — Expedition
among the hills — Native houses — An inhospitable village —
A dangerous ride — A welcome r«ception — Shepherd-boys —
The Jjesghians — Russian love for the Czar — Unsuitable educa-
tion — Mountain-climbing — Magnificent scenery — Red deer —
Vegetation — A chamois — A weary descent — A happy people
—Photographing the scenery — A 'Baboushka' — 'Develop-

m»

co.\Tj':.\Ts.

I'AUK

'.M.K

injr ' our pliotogmphs—A inoiintaiii chi'ilt't— The snow peaks
-Wild floats juid sheep — DilKcult m(nintniiuHMin}r - A n
ullurinjr clinso— Suspended over a precipice — A bleak nijrhta
lo(l>riMj; —Mountain turkeys —JUack pliensants— Luinraer-^iuis
— Advice to traveUcrs— Return to (Joktohai . . . .-Jo'}

CHAPTKH Xlll.

FHOM GOKTCHAI TO LENKOKAV. •

Koit;.'h travelling— Shooting by the way— Sheniaklia nnd Aksu
— Tarantasses and post-roads — A wretchid .station ~ Mud
volcanoes and naphtha sprinfr^ - llustards— On the road t(»
Salian— Swarms of wild-fowl- .V rascally official— Disap-
pointed hopps—A good Samaritan — Rival hosts— Asiatic
fever— The Mooghan steppf - l^elicans and myriads of other
birds— Tartar orgies— Ha'u led secretaries: the Molochans
and Skoptsi— Arrival at Lenkoraii- A IVrsian gunsmith—
Fellow-sportsmen

28/

131

UHAPTER XIV.

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN. — RETURN TO TIFLIS.

Lenkoran— Abundance of game— Ery vool forest— NatiA e fowlers
—A hunting lodge— Swarming coverts— Wild boar— A paia-
dise for sportsmen— Pigs at bay—' Old Shirka ' and his quarry
—A dying eagle— Caspian woodpeckers— Festive nights-
Watching for a tiger— Forest life by night— The eagle-owl
and his prey— End of a long vigil— The rainy season— The
streets of Lenkoran— The return journey to Tiflis— Adventure
at adji Kabool — Experiences of post-travel — Bullying a
station-master— Armenian Protestants — Russian telegraph
service— In miserable plight— A spill over a precipice— Refit-
ting our tarantasse— ^r«7«wicM<«w ad hominem— An awkward
predicament— Chasing a yemstchik— Renewed life at Tiflis—
Great snow-fall— Running down antelope— The ' black death ' 311

COXTE.VTS.

CHAPTKR XV.

THE RAIN.S.

PACK

iotr-(,,a.s,nj, wild boar - Red-deer - Turks and (<. i.
Sotc-ba~Lvnxo«-(Ja,ue in the Cauca V ^?'"^"'''^^-

-A wounded .ow-]3eautiful «ceT \7^ '"'"^"'^^ /""'•'

tont inundated-Surir,7wXf "^ 'T~^^

terrible catastrophe- Welcome l^Ilnp/r ^*'^'~'^
scene-Eludin, Le atorrX-dt,? 7 t^r'^^^^^ ^"^^^

-CWsack oats iZ;\ n '' ^'de-Stru.gli... for lii^
England . ! ^a^ar-Laid up with fever-Itoturn to

^ «■.* « .,u.a to ,krec.,uarurs .fan £.,yliA ,„.V,

r.\r,K

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA AND
THE CAUCASUS.

CHAPTER I.

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

Outfit — The droshky— A merry party— The Straits of Kertch—
The steppe— Wild-fowl— Crops— The Malos— The ' Starrie Met-
chat ' -Game— Tscherkess greyhounds — Stalking bustards— A
picnic — Night on the steppe.

Scarcely a week's journey from London, with de-
licious climates and any quantity of game, it always
seemed a marvel to me how few English sportsmen
ever found their way to the Crimea or Caucasus. It
is now something more than five years ago since I
first made myself acquainted with the breezy rose-
mary-clad steppes of the former, or the low wooded
hills on the Black Sea coast of the latter. For
nearly three years resident at Kertch, I had ample
opportunity of testing all the pleasures of the
steppe, and a better shooting-ground for the wild-
fowler or man who likes a lot of hard work, with
a plentiful and varied bag at the end of his day,
could nowhere be found. Of course the sportsman

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

in the Crimea must rough it to a certain extent,
but his roughing it, if he only has a civil tongue
and cheery manner, will be a good deal of the
' beer and beefsteak ' order. The Russians are
hospitable to all men, especially to the sportsman ;
and the peasants, even the Tartars, are cordial
good fellows if taken the right way.

On the steppes you need rarely want for a roof
overhead, if you prefer stuffiness, smoke, and do-
mestic insects to wild ones, with dew and the night
air. If you can put up with sour cream (very
good food when you are used to it), black bread,
an arboose, fresh or half-pickled, with a bumper
of fearful unsweetened gin (vodku) to digest the
foregoing, you need never suffer huxiger long. But
for the most part sportsmen take their food with
them. P( 'haps if my readers Tvill let me, it would
be better to take them at once on to the steppe, and
tell them all this en route.

Imagine then that for the last two days you
have been hard at work out of office hours loading
cartridges with every variety of shot, from the
small bullets used for the bustard down to the
dust-shot for the quail. Here, in Kertch, take a
victim's advice : make your own cartridges, don't
buy them. The month is July ; the first of July,
with an intensely blue sky, far away above you,
giving you an idea of distance and immensity that
you could never conceive in England, where the

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

clouds always look as if they would knock your
hat off. I should have said the sky will be blue
by-and-by, for at present it is too dark to see, and
we are carefully tucked away in bed ; the' im-
pedimenta of the coming journey— cold meats,
flasks of shooting powder, and jumping powder ;'
bread, guns, and a huge string of unsavoury
onions—all on the floor beside us. Ding, ding,
ding! as if the door-bell were in a fit, then^'a crasli
and silence. No one ever rang a door-bell as a
Russian droshky-driver rings it. He likes the
muscular exertion, he loves the noise, and doesn't
in the least mind being sworn at if, as in the
present instance, he breaks the bell-wire. A -^ear
in Russia has hardened us to all this, so merely
speculating as to whether our landlord wHl pay
more for broken bell-wires this half than last, we
bundle out of bed and submit meekly to the re-
proaches of our friends outside on the cart. They
poor fellows, have had half an hour's less sleep
than we have, and it's only 4 a.m. now, so any
little hastiness of speech may be forgiven them.

But on such a morning as this, and on such a
conveyance as our droshky, no one could remain
sleepy or sulky long. The brisk bright air makes
the blood race through your veins, and the terrible
bumpings of the droshky on the uneven track, or half-
paved streets, keep you fully employed in strivino-
to avoid a spill or a fractured limb. Anything

B 2

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

more frightful to a novice in Russia than the
drosliky I cannot conceive. This instrument of
torture is a combination of untrimmed logs and
ropes and wheels, vf'\X\\ cruelly insinuating iron
bands, merciless knots, and ubiquitous splinters.
Manage your seat how you will, you are bound to
keep bumping up and down, and at each descent
you land on something more painful than that you
have encountered before.

In spite of all this, as the droshky leaves the town,
the old German jager breaks out into a hunting
ditty, and, truth to tell, until the wind is fairly
jogged out of us we are a very noisy party. Then
we try to light cur cigarettes and pipes, and if we
are lucky, only have the hot ashes jerked on to our
next neighbour's knee. Gradually the dawning
light increases, the clouds of pearly grey are
reddening, and the long undulating swell of the
steppeland slowly unf Ids itself around us. On
our left are the Straits of Kertch, the sea looking
still and hazy, with some half-dozen English
steamers lording it amongst the mosquito fleet of
fruiterers and lighters which fills the bay. All
round us are chains of those small hills, whose
dome-like tops proclaim them tumuli of kings and
chiefs who went to rest ages ago, when the town
behind us was still a mighty city, rejoicing in the
name of Panticapasum.

Once clear of the ranges of tumuli or kour-

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

gans, as they call them here, there is nothing hut
steppe. On all points, except the seaside of the
view, a treeless prairie; no hills, no houses, scarcely
even a bush to break the monotony of bare or
weed-grown waste. On tlie right of the post-road
by which we are travelling (a mere beaten track
and really no road at all) run the lines of the
Indo-European Telegraph Company, their neat
sHm posts of iron contrasting not unfavouralilv
with the crooked, misshapen posts which support
the Russian lines on our left. Unimportant as
these might appear elsewhere, they are important
objects here, where they are the only landmarks
to man, and the only substitute for trees to the
fowl of the air.

All along the road on either side of us the
wires are now becoming lined with kestrels, just
up evidently, and looking as though they were
giving themselves a shake, and rubbing their eyes
preparatory to a day's sport amongst the beetles
and field-mice that swarm on the steppe. The
number of kestrels round Kertch is somethino-
astonishmg, and I almost think that with the other
hawks, the blue hen harrier, kites and crows, tliey
would almost outnumber the sparrows of the town.
Now, too, our lovely summer visitants, the golden-
throated bee-eaters, begin to shoot and poise
swallow-like over the heads of the tall yellow
hollyhock growing in wild profusion over the

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

plain ; hoopoes, with broad crests erect, peck and
strut bantam-like by the roadside, while every now
and again the magnificent azure wings of the 'roller'
glitter in the morning sun among the flowers.

The 'bleak steppeland' is what you always
hear of, and shudder as you hear, dread Siberian
visions being conjured up at the mere name. But
who that has seen the stepjjes in the later days of
spring, or in the glow of midsummer, would apply
such an epithet to lands that in their season are as
richly clad in flowers as any prairie of the West ?
Long strips of wild tulip. Nature's cloth of gold,
blue cornflower, crow's-foot and bird's-eye, the
canary- coloured hollyhock and crimson wild pea,
all vie in compensating the steppeland for her
chill snow-shroud in the months that are gone and
to come.

Rich as the land is, the crops by the roadside
are few and paltry, the chief being rye, maize,
millet, and sunflowers. The sunflowers are culti-
vated for their seed, which is either used for
making oil, or more generally is sold in a dry
state as ' cernitchkies.' ' Cernitchkies ' furnish the
Malo Euss, male and female, with one of their
most favourite means of wasting time. Go where
you will, ai; any time, in Kertcli, you will find
people cracking these sunflower seeds, and trying
to make two bites of the kernel. At every street
corner you find a stall where they are sold, and

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

you rarely come in witlicut finding one of the
little grey shards clinging to your dress, spat upon
you by some careless passer-by, or sent adrift from
some balcony overhead.

Beside these crops, you come across long strips
of water melons, the principal food of the Malo
Kuss in the summer, and one of the chief sources
of the Asiatic cholera sometimes so prevalent here.

But for the most part the land is untilled left to

its ^vild-flowers and weeds.

The peasant of the Crimea makes but a sorry
agriculturist. The Malo Russ is a lazy, good-
natured ne'er-do-weel ; his days being more than
half 'prasniks' (saints' days), he devotes the
holy half to getting drunk on vodka, the other half
to recovering from the effects of the day before.
One day you may see him in long boots and a
red shirt, with his arms round another l)ig-bearded
moujik's neck in the drinking den, or husband and
wife, on the broad of their backs, dead drunk, on
the highway. The day after you'll find him in a
moralizing mood, seated on his doorstep, smoking
the eternal papiros, or nibbling sunflower seeds.

Russians have told me that there are more
holy days than calendar days in the year. To be
holy a day need not be a saint's day— a birthday
in the Emperor's family is quite enough to make
a 'prasnik.' Of the actu;,l Church fetes there
are 128.

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

The best agriculturists here are the German
colonists, whose neat homesteads remind one for
the moment of lands nearer home. Even the
Tartars are better than the Malo Russ, but they
have lately been leaving the Crimea in large
numbers to escape the compulsory military service
which Russia seeks to impose upon them. Every-
where the army seems to be the worst enemy of
the State.

At last our ride comes to an end, and there is
a general stretching of limbs and buckling on of
shot-belts and powder-flasks, for with many muzzle-
loaders are still the fashion here. The place at which
we have stopped is the ' Starrie Metchat,' or old
church, a Tartar ruin near a well, embosomed in
rosemary- covered hills. Near this well we pitch our
tents, and then we each go off on a beat of our own.
Here there is room enough for all, and as some
excellent Russian sportsmen have a careless way
of shooting through their friends' legs at a boltmg
hare, perhaps solitude has its peculiar advantages.

As you brciist the first hill the sweet-scented
covert comes nearly up to your waist, and right
and left of you huge grasshoppers jump away or
into your face with a vicious snap that is at first
enough to upset the best regulated nerves. But
see, your dog is pointing, and as you near him a
large covey of grey birds, larger than our grouse,
get up with whistling wings, and with smooth

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

undulating flight skim round the corner of the
next hill. You get one long shot and bag your
bird perhaps. The dog moves uncertamly forward,
and then stands again. Go up to liim ; wherever
strepita (lesser bustard) have been you are sure to
find a hare or two close by. Time after time have
I found this, although I cannot account for the
fact in any way. The hares here are larger than
our English hares, and in winter turn almost
white, the skins in autumn having sometimes
most beautiful shades of silver and rose upon
them. The largest hare I ever remember to have
seen weighed nearly thirteen pounds — it was an
old buck — while in England a hare of eight
pounds is exceptionally large.

The dogs used in the Crimea for coursing are
called Tscherkess greyhounds ; they stand con-
siderably higher at the shoulder than our own
dogs, are broken-haired, with a much longer coat
than our staghound, and a feathered stern. I am
told that on the flat the English greyhound beats
them for a short distance ; but that in the hills,
or with a strong old hare well on her legs before
them, the Crimean dogs have it all their own
way. I never had the good fortune to see the
two breeds tried together. In fact, what cours-
ing I did see was utterly spoilt by the Russian
habit of cutting off the hare, and shooting her
under the dog's nose. This is, of course, utterly

ITT^'

\iv

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

alien to our notions of sport — but so arc most of
tlieir sporting habits. They never shoot flying
if they can get a chance sitting. Jiears and boars
and such hirge game they shoot from phitforms in
trees at night ; and I never saw a horse jump in
all my three years in Southern Russia. Of course,
what applies to the Crimea and the Caucasus may
not apply to other parts of Russia.

As long as we keep in the rosemary, hares,
quails, and strepita are all we are likely to meet
with, except that in the valley and on the less
sunny hillsides the dogs ever and anon flush
large owls, that sail away hardly as bewildered as
they are generally supposed to be by the sunlight.
Overhead kites and harriers swim about in the
clear sky, keeping a keen look-out for winged
quails or wounded hares. But as we get to the
top of the next rising ground we see in the plain
far away at our feet a long line of ^vliat might well
be grey -coated infantry. A closer inspection, or a
previous acquaintance with the objects before us, will
enable us to make them out to be bustards feeding
line upon line in a flock — or herd, to speak correctly
— of several hundreds. Most of them are busy with
their heads on the ground, gleaning what they can
from an old maize field ; but here and there, at a
slight distance from the rest, stands a sentry that
the most wary stalker cannot baftie, or the most
alluring grain tempt

from his ceaseless watch.

SPORT /A THE CRIMEA.

Knowing that we are already seen, and being
perfectly well aware that by ordinary stalking on
these open plains we could never get nearer than
three hundred yards from the herd before the old
sentinel sets them all in motion with his shrill call,
we retrace our steps, and get our comrades together.
Then the horses are put to, and all with our guns
in readiness we drive towards the point at which
the bustards were seen. When within sight of
them we make arrangements among ourselves, and
then the drosky is driven quietly past the bustards
some five hundred yards from them. All their
heads are up, and the whole of the herd of two
hundred is watching us intently ; but they know
something of the range of a gun, and feel safe
enough to stay yet awhile. Watch hard as you
may, grey birds, you didn't notice that one of the
occupants of the droshky has just rolled off, gun in
hand, and is now lying flat buried in a deliciously
fragrant bed of rosemary. One by one, as the
droshky circles round the watchfn^ ^irds, the occu-
pants drop off and lie still, until at last we have p
cordon of sportsmen drawn right round the herd,
and only the yemstchik remains on the droshky.
Slowly, so as not to frighten them, he narrows his
circle, while each hidden gunner keeps his eye
anxiously on his movements.

At last, having stretched their necks to the very
utmost limit and twisted them into gyrations that

SPOILT IN THE CRIMEA.

would surprise a corkscrew, the bustards think they
have had enougli of it, and tlicre is a slow flai)pin<^
of wings, and hoisting of the lieavy bodies into air.
Slowly, with a grand solemn flight, wonderfully in
keeping with the wild majesty of the boundless
plains on which they live, they sail away towards
the hills. Suddenly the leaders stop with a jerk,
and try too late to change their direction. From
the covert beneath the sportsman starts to his
feet, two bright flashes are seen, two reports follow,
one huge bird collapses at once and another lowers
for a moment, and then goes feebly on to fall at the
first discharge of the next hidden gun. Right and
left the remainder fly, rising somewhat as they do
so, but still not high enough to take them out of
danger, and when at last they have passed the fatal
circle, five fine birds reward our stratagem.

One of us has to face a storm of chaff" hard for
a disappointed sportsman to bear, for in his excite-
ment he had neglected to change his cartridges ; and
although standing within short pistol-shot of a
passing monster, the quail -shot produces nothing
more than a shower of feathers, enough almost to
stuff" a bolster with.

By thus surrounding them, and by shooting
them occasionally from a cart, a few of these mag-
nificent birds (larger than a turkey and finer eat-
ing) are killed from time to time throughout sum-
mer and autumn. A few too are sometimes picked

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

«3

up by the gunner in the early summer wliilst Rtill
young, as they hide separately or in small coveys in
tlie deep undergrowth. But the only time when any
quantity are exposed in the bazaar for sale is in the
depths of winter. Then when a snowstorm has
caught the birds hiding in the valleys, and clogged
their wings with snow, which a bitter wind still
more surely binds about them, these poor denizens
of the desert are surrounded and driven like a flock
of sheep into the Tartar villages, where they are
butchered, and thence sent in cartloads into Kertch,
to be sold at a rouble and a half (3.9. G^/.) apiece.

After slaying the bustards, having done enough
for gloi'y, we have time V remember a thirst that
would empty a samovar and an appetite that would
astonish a negro. Gladly we hurry back to our
little tent in a cleft at the foot of the hills, and
while one unpacks the cold meats, dried sturgeon
and caviare, another gets water for that tea without
which our repast would be poor indeed to a Rus-
sian. Being born and bred Englishmen, two of us
might well have been expected to prefer our native
beer to tea, but it is wonderful how fond men get
of the delicious tea brewed in Russia, with its slip of
lemon in it to add piquancy to the flavour. For
my own part, after really severe exertion I am most
thoroughly convinced it is by far the best restora-
tive you can take, and one which I should prefer to
any otl^er liquid whatever. Try as you will you

i !■

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

can neither get nor make such tea in England, and
once away from Russia, you must be content to leave
the blessings of tea, ' swejie ikra ' (fresh caviare),
and the soothing papiros (cigarette) behind you ;
for numerous as tobacconists are in England, I
know none where really good cigarette tobacco can
be bought, such as you smoke in the Crimea.

Meanwhile, as we are still here, let us lie on our
backs and enjoy the delicious weed, watching the
yemstchik arrange that wonderful puzzle of old
cord which constitutes the harness of a troika. At
last the horses are ready, and depositing ourselves
and game on the jolting vehicle, we let our legs
swing over the side, and if used to the motion
manage to get a great deal of pleasure out of the
drive home.

As the evening closes in over these wild waste
lands, a stillness and peace seem to come with it
of which one has no knowledge in the towns. The
piping of the quails, the long soft wail of the
coolik (curlew), and even the notes of the German
hunting horn on the other droshky far in front, all
seem to make fitting music for the hour and scene ;
and as the stars begin to shine out from a sky of
infinite denth and metallic blueness, the oojai
domoi (home already) is spoken not without an
accent of regret, though limbs are tired and steppe
roads rough.

CRASNOI LAIS.

CHAPTER II.

CRASNOI LAIS.

A frozen sea— Swarms of wild-fowl— The Indo-European telegraph-
Sledging on the 4zov— A desolate scene— Taman— Journey in-
land — Tumeruk - TIotels-A dangerous sleep— Foxes— Wolves
—A liasty retreat— Ekaterinodar— Supper in the forest of (.'rasnoi
Lais— An exciting nights sport— Driving the forest — Cossack
beatcrs-Wild deer— Other game— The bag-Rations of vodka—
A Cossack orgy -Vulpine sagacity —Wolf stories-Return to
Kertch.

It was in February of 1876 that I first made
acquaintance with the Caucasus. Once or twice
before then it is true that I had crossed over to
Taman and had a day's pheasant- shooting on the
reedy shores of the Kuban. As we poled our flat-
bottomed boat along its sluggish waters, I had a
glimpse every now and again of the track of boar
or cazeole (roe), that made me long for a chance of
a longer stay on its banks. But it was not until
the February of 1876 that my wish was granted.
For weeks we had had all business stopped by the
frost. The whole of the Azov was frozen as hard
as the high-road, and it was only beyond the forts
and well into the Black Sea that any open water
could be found. Here the wild-fowl swarmed.

I !')

CRASNOI LAIS.

Along the edge of the ice, where the open water
began, lines of cormorants stood solemn and patient,
fringing the ice with a black border of upright
forms for miles. Beyond these in the open water
were myriads of crested duck (anas fuligula),
golden-eye pochards, scaups, and whistlers. Here
and there in bevies, with hoods extended, the great
grebes sailed about, while great northern divers and
rosy-breasted mergansers all added their quota to
the beauty of the scene. More beautiful than all
others, groups of smews, with their plumage of
delicately pencilled snow, ducked and curtsied on
the swelling wave, while overhead the pintail
whistled by, the large fish-hawks poised in air, and
the gulls laughed and chattered perpetually.

For the last few weeks most of my time had
been spent among the wil^^-fowl or skating with
the fair ladies of Kertch on the rink by the jetty.
But one fine morning the lines of the Indo-Euro-
pean Telegraph Company between Taman and
Ekaterinodar were good enough to break down, and
my friend the chief of the Kertch station was
ordered to make an inspection of them along their
whole length from one point to another. It seemed
to him a long and wearisome journey to make by
himself, so that Uke a good man and considerate,
he asked me to share his sledge with him. Always
glad to give me a chance of enjoying myself in my
own way, my kind old chief readily agreed to the

CRASNOI LAIS.

.iiTanfi^eineiit, and within an lioin* from the time
wlien K. first proposed tlie trip, li(> and I were hard
at work in the bazaar purchasing stores for the
joarney. There is of course a post-road from
Taman to Ekaterinodar, but badly indeed will those
fare who trust to the resources of a Russian post
station for their bodily comfort. This we well
knew, and in consequence a large stock of German
sausages, caviare, vodki, and other portable eatables
and drinkables were stowed away in the body o^
our sledge.

For many days previous to the time of which
I wi'ite, the over-sea route from Yenikale to
Taman had been open to carts and sledges, while
vans, laden with com, had been continually cross-
ing with only an aggregate of two accidents in the
last four days. It was then with but few mis-
givings that we embarked in our sledge with a
really good 'troika' (team of three) in front,
coached by the noisiest rascal of a yemstchik that
ever swore at horses. Our road for the first
twenty-two versts lay over the bosom of the Azov,
and as we passed through regular streets of mos-
quito shipping, and now and then under the hull
of some big steamer caught in the ice, the sensa-
tion was strangely novel. For the first ten versts
the road was good, the pace exhilarating, and buried
in our warm rugs we hugged to ourselves the con-
viction that we were in for a really good thing.

! I',

i'l

I
i

gill

CRASNOI LAIS.

After this, however, we got to piled and broken
ice, where the accidents of the last four days had
occurred, and where our driver averred a current
existed. Here my friend got nervous, and insisted
on walking at a fair distance from the sledge, which
proceeded meanwhile at a foot's pace. This in the
increasing frost mist was not so cheerful, but the
current was soon cleared, and in another half hour
we landed safe and sound at that miserable little
town of Taman.

The only living tilings we had passed on our
way were several wretclied assemblies of pale-look-
ing gulls, literally frozen out, poor fellows, and a
few huge eagles, squatting on the ice, their plumes
all ruffled uj^, suffering probably as much from a
surfeit of wounded ducks as from cold. The whole
scene as we crossed was as desolate as the mind can
well imagine ; Kertch behind us, white Avitli snow,
clusteriniii; round the hill of Mithridates, a mere
skeleton of her former glory in the days of Greek
and Persian ; Taman, once too a prosperous city,
now a few hovels buried in a snowdrift ; Yenikale
perhaps more dead than either ; and all round the
long low hills, the rounded tumuli of dead kings ;
tlie tall bare masts of the belated ships ; a frozen
sea beneath and a freezing sky above.

Once in Taman we gave our driver a good tip
( ' na tchai ' ) for the tea as they call it, and betook
ourselves to a friend's house for a few minutes' rest

CRASNOr LAfS.

broken
ays had
current
insisted
i, which
LS in the
but the
alf hour
3le little

on our
Je-look-
s, and a
' plumes
1 from a
le whole
lind can
h snow,

a mere
f Greek
>us city,
!^enikale
iind the

kings;
% frozen

ood tip

betook

tes' rest

before our next start. Why a yemstchik's fee, which
is invariably spent in nips of vodka (unsweetened
gin) should be called tea- money, has always ap-
peared to iMo an nuansweralile enignui. 'rninan
hardly deserves a description, even from soluuuble
a pen as mine. It has a jetty and a telegrai)h
station ; is the post from which a few cattle are
shipped to Kertch, and to which a few travellers to
the Caucasus come from the same place. Once it
was a large and flourishing city, twin sister to
Panticapoium (Kertch) on the other side of the
straits ; now it is a collection of miserable hovels,
surrounded by nnid knee-deep in winter and storms
of dust in summer, with an odour of fish and the
vodka shop in all seasons. There are near to
Taman some large oil- works, from which naphtha
is said to be extracted in large quantities. It may
be so, but I hear that their original owner is bank-
rupt, and he was a Russian ; so tliut as the present
proprietors are Americans, and as such less likely
to be able to protect themselves from local frauds, I
should not feel inclined to invest my bottom dollar
in the Taman Oil Company.

Such a wretched place did we find Taman, that
we were glad to leave it and commence our journey
inland at once. In describing a journey the
traveller as a rule looks to the scenery to supply at
least a very large portion of his description ; what
then shall the luckless traveller do, who has

c 2

1 ;

CRASNOr LAIS.

literally 110 scenery to describe? The I'oad is u
beiiteii track by the telegraph posts, with, every
sixteen or twenty versts, a white house with a straw
yard and some sheds at the back, and a black and
white post with a bell rool'ed in on the top of
it in the front. This is the post station. The
country surrounding it is apparently waste, and,
except for a few flocks of sheep, an old hooded
crow or two, and maybe a bustard, quite un-
tenanted by living things. Always the snow
beneath and the jingling bells in front, and this
with no incident to rouse one, naturally ends in sleep.
Towards evening we came in sight of a larger
group of buildings than any we had hitherto seen,
nnd this we found was Tumeruk, our resting-place
for the night. As far as we could see it was a
larger town than Taman, w^itli the inevitable gi'een-
domed church, a good spacious bazaar, barracks I
think, and a neat little club-house. We were told
that Tumeruk derived its wealth from the stur-
geon fishery carried on to a very great extent in its
neighbourhood. We were also told there were two
good hotels in the place, and set off in high spirits
to search for them, a comfortable bed to follow a
good supper of sturgeon and caviare being things as
welcome as they were unexpected. We searched
diligently and found the first hotel, a moujik's
drinking den or ' cabak.' There was a table with
a man under it, and many more nearly ready to

lRASNOI LAIS.

road is a
ith, every
til a straw
)lack and
16 top of
on. Tlie
Lste, and,
1 hooded
[uite un-
lie snow
and this
sin sleep.
E" a larger
rto seen,
ing-place
it was a
le gi'een-
irracks I
^ere told
he stur-
mt in its
vere two
h spirits
follow a
hings as
searched
tnoujik's
ble with
eady to

follow his peaceful example, but no beds and no
supper. At last we found the grand hotel, a gaunt
white house near the bazaar. With doubting
hearts (for the place looked deserted) Ave beat at
the little door, but got no response. After nearly
ten minutes spent in mutilating our knuckles and
damaging the door, a fellow in shirt and slippers
turned up, looking as astonished as his besotted
face would allow him to. The ' cazain ' (master)
was away, he said, and spite of his boasting anent
the capabilities of his house, we soon found there
was no food in it but black bread — no servant but
himself. But he managed to find us a room in
fair repair, with a couple of the usual wooden bed-
steads in it, and this we took. To our horror we
found the stoves had not been lighted for a month,
and were out of order, so that the cold indoors was
greater than that without. Still it was too late to
seek a lodging elsewhere, so we had some of our
own stores cooked, a dram of Tumeruk vodka
from the cabak, a small charcoal stove put in the
middle of the room, and then rolling ourselves in
every fragment of clothing we could find, and
almost regretting that we had ever left our com-
fortable quarters in Kertch, we proceeded to reap
the reward of our long drive in a deep and dream-
less sleep.

Towards morning I half awoke with an idea that
the house was attacked, so violent was the noise

I
t

i, ;

' • I

i ■ 1

■

1 '

1 ; 1

• il

f .

'1'

I ■

1 '

i I

CRASNOI LAIS.

tluit aroused me, and at once j uuiped up to see what
was happening. But the moment I was out of
bed a strange giddiness seized me, and turning
round I fell, and remember no more until I found
a friendly telegraphist endeavouring to rouse me
with libations of cold water freely applied. Gra-
dually I came round, but with such an intense
headache and utter inability to use my own limbs,
that I had rather have remained insensible. I was
utterly unable to help in rousing my poor friend
K., and as my senses came back to me 1 became
seriously alarmed lest our morning callers should
have been too late to save hiui.

The truth was, something was wrong with the
charcoal stove. Every aperture through which
ventilation could be effected had, Russian fashion,
been hermetically sealed for tlie winter, and my
friend and 1 had had the narrowest escape from
aspiiyxiation possible. After imuM'nse efforts we
brought him round, but in spite of the bracing
cold and the rapid driving, we both suffered from
racking headaches and extreme lassitude for the
rest of tlie day.

The travelling during tiiis second day was of a
more interesting nature; the country being covered
in many places for miles with jungles of a tall
reed called ' kamish,' in which i)heasants are said
to abound, and boars and roe to occur not infre-
fpiently. After getting out of the reedy land we

Cl^ASNOr LAIS.

caiuc to a tract of another nature, bare and rock-
strewn ; and here, witliin lialf a mile of tlie station
at which we slei)t, I was snrprised to see numbers
of foxes hunting about in tlie snow for food. 1
should think that at one tiine a score must have been
in sight simultaneously. As soon as we had taken
in our rugs and ordered tlie samovar, I took my
rifle, as it was not yet dusk, luid tried to stalk
one of these little red rovers, without the least
compunction, as foxhounds are probably a blessing
of civilisation with which these barren lands will
never be acquainted. But though I stalked a good
deal and shot once or twice, I did no go(jd until J
got to a frozen lake, some three-quarters of a mile
from the station. Here I wounded a fox and fol-
lowed him for some distance over the ice, and in
domg so came across the remains of some large
animal lately torn to pieces by brutes of prey.

Having given up my fox, I was? meditating
what maimer of beasts these might be, when my
answer came in a long, weird howl. No need to
tell any one what that sound is. Instinct teaches
every man to recognise the wolfs howl, and once
heard it is not easily forgotten. The first howl
was followed by another aud another, and though
I have no wish to pose as a coward, 1 frankly
admit I wished I was anywhere l)ut three-quarters
of a mile from a house, and all the distance two
feet deep in snow, which would not bear my Vveight

I.l ' <

CRASNOI LAIS.

:.\\

on tlie surface. The wind, luckily, was from them
to me, so that, though I walked back at my best
pace, j)lunging frantically into deep drifts every
few yards, from which 1 was spurred on by ever-
recurring wolf music, I saw nothing, thongli I
heard a good deal of my grim serenaders. It was
a retreat, I admit, undignified, if you will ; but if
the wind had been in another qujutcr it miglit
have been worse. Over our tea that night the
station-master spun many a long yarn of tlie doings
of the wolves, highly coloured perhaps, but true in
part, I believe. Next morning tlieir tracks were
numerous by the post-road, and they must evi-
dently have been about in some force.

After another day's journey, passing through a
few Cossack villages, with their green-domed
churches and walled enclosures, w^e at last came
in siglit of our journey's end, Ekaterinodar. This
is the first town of any size on this side the Cau-
casus, and at first siglit even this is more forest
than town. The trees have just been sufficiently
removed to make room for the houses, but wher-
ever no house actually stands the forest has not
been mterfered with. The effect was extremely
pretty, now that the snow had loaded every tree
with its wdiite plumes and given the streets a hard
white covering ; but in summer, when the acacias
(which predominate here) are in blossom, Ekateri-
nodar must be as lovely as it is malarious. In

CRASNOI LAIS.

summer and early autumn fever raj^es here, and
even now every man and woman that wc pass in
tlic streets has a yellow wizen face that tells of
the rava«j^es of this Asiatic (;urse. Here at last
everything is genuinely Asiatic except the build-
ings. The grotesque combinations of top liat and
lonjr boots are not seen here. The denizens of the
streets are tall Cossacks with high sheepskin hats,
with a crown all scarlet cloth and gold braid ;
short broad-shouldered Tartars, in loose blue gar-
ments, belted at the waist with bright-coloured
shawls ; women in short petticoats and high boots
with basliliks over their heads. The shops are
most of them open magazines, with no glass front,
but instead an awning in front of them, and inside
a broad counter, on which the proprietor sits
cross-legged with cigarette or long pipe in mouth.
The wares for sale consist chiefly of pelts brought
in by the Tscherkesses from the neighbourhood; and
here, in the examination of them, my friend and I
spent no small time, as a great deal of the natural
history of the country may be gleaned from these
middlemen, and many a good guide and hunter
be secured from among their clients.

I shall pass over the two days we spent here
as shortly as possible. My friend had his work
to do, and my own time was filled up by chatting
with the officers who frequented the hotel at
which we were staying. It was whilst thus

i«

C HAS NO I LAIS.

eii^jige<l that we firwt heard of the existence of a
large royal forest of some twenty-nine square
versta in extent, which lay only some fifteen versts
out of our course on the return journey. To
make up our minds to visit it, having secured
letters of introduction to the royal forester (Col.
II.), was the work of five minutes, and next
morning saw us with a friend in our sledge, who
knew the colonel, dasliing with buoyant spirits
over the glittering snow. When the long line of
darkly- wooded country first caught our eyes clean
cut against the frosty blue sky, the stars were
already in the heavens, and an occasional bark
told us the foxes were jdl abroad, busy in their
nocturnal forays.

After a drive of half-an-hour through dim
forost rides, a fire glinnnered ruddily through the
trees, and the deep baying of hounds told us we
had almost arrived. The forester's house was a
small four-roomed cottage, with a Avattle enclosure
round it, while outside the enclosure a few huts
and a huge bonfire betokened the presence of the
score of Cossacks who formed his staft^". Throwing
open his door, our host rushed out to meet us, a
little wiry man, Avitli a ruddy complexion, bright
merry eye, huge grizzled moustache, and the most
cordial manners possible. Once inside the cottage,
the samovar was soon steaming comfortably, and a
supper of caviare and roebuck broth, with the meat to

CA'/ISNO/ LAIS.

cncc of a 9

e square 9

3cn versts ' j

ey. To J

secured fl

ter (Col. ■

nd next fl

Ige, who 9

t spirits 9

g line of 3

yes clean 9

-rs were *«

lal bark fl

iu their 9

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3W huts 9

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irowing S

!ct US, a S

, bright ,S

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cottage, ^1

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meat to 9

follow, was discusKod with an ai)i)etite which even the
schnai)})s could not increase. Then bed was pro-
German, and of a

H'Uig a

ipi
posed, and my friend 1
certain age, readily fell in with the proposition. Not
so the writer. To sit still or go to bed, now
when all the longings of one's life were almost
granted, hearing the veteran sportsman before me
discoursing cahnly of the boars that had broken
into his enclosure the night before, or the stag
which he had shot a few nights before that, was too
nuicli for my boyish impatience ; and my kind
old host, seemg it, was as pleased at my keenness
as anuised at my imp.'itience. Going out, he found
one of the Cossacks was just prei)aring for anight
hunt, and returning asked me if 1 would care to
accompany liiui. Of course I jumped at the offer,
and was starting forthwith. But my host called
me back, and making me leave my owji useless
garments behind me, dressed me in a huge pair
of felt boots of his own and his fur-lined, much-
braided forester's coat. Thus attired, 1 must have
been too much of an attraction for my lazy friend,
who shook himself together, and being similarly
clad resolved to follow me.

The Cossack who was to be our chaperone was
a sturdy, ill-favoured fellow, in the wildest com-
bintition of sheepskins conceivable, but he seemed
to know his work, and was none the worse for
Ijeing silent. As we [)assed down the long forest

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aisles, our footsteps, thanks to the felt shoes and
the snow, were soundless even in that still night.
Half an hour's tramp through a perfect fairy land
of frozen oaks, with a carpet of snow at their feet,
on which our guide silently pointed out many a
fresh track, and then we paused. One of us was
to stay here ; I stayed, my friend took a position
a quarter of a mile further on, the Cossack being
at the same distance beyond him. My own post was
at the foot of an enormous oak, and here I crouched,
my long felt boots deep sunk in the snow, my
back against the tree, and my rifle across my knees.

Now it was that I learnt how necessary it is to
wear the clothing of the country. Sitting thus
with my feet in the snow in tight leather boots, I
must have either kept up the circulation by moving
my feet occasionally, which would have been fatal
to my chance of sport, or I must have had my
feet frost-bitten. As it was, in my loose boots of
felt, my feet were almost too hot ; and of course
the rest of my body kept about the same tem-
perature as my feet.

Once my companions had taken up their posts
the whole forest was still as death for some
minutes. The stillness indeed was so great as
to be oppressive, and the occasional sounds — an
owl's weird hoot, the howl of a wolf, or the
stealthy spring of an old grey hare — only height-
ened the effect by contrast. On every side I could

CRASNOI LAn.

being

could

look down long vistas of frozen hazels witli tall
oaks rising above them, through whose quaintly
twisting limbs the mtense metallic light of the
winter moon gleamed down on the sparkling snow,
or catching the icicles that hung in huge clusters
from them drew from them all manner of pale
prismatic colours. Every now and again a dark sha-
dow glided over the snow, and a sound like a devil's
low chuckling laugh told one that the substance
of that shadow was the great eagle owl, whose
sti'ong silent pinions were creeping, a very shadow
of death, over some doomed hare. At one time a
company of wolves seemed to have gathered round,
for as soon us a long vibrating howl had moaned
itself into silence on one side, another took up the
strain and startled the forest on the other. All
round us this music was kept up, but not a single
wolf showed himself either to my companions or
myself. Suddenly there was a loud report as if
an enormous piece of artillery had been fired, and
as the echoes thundered through the forest, the
whole seemed to wake at once to a fiendish riot of
strange sound. Every prowling beast and weird
night-bird screamed in concert, and then all was
silence again. This was caused by the cracking
of the ice on the Kuban some miles off.

After an hour of intense enjoyment of this
kind, I was roused by a distant crashing, as though
a regiment was noisily breaking its way through

C,7ASX0l LAIS.

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I III

the undergrowth. On and on it came, growing
ever louder as it drew near, until the noise in that
silent place seemed worthy of a herd of elephants.
It came straight towards where I lay, and my
heart beat so loudly with excitement that I really
believed for the moment that the a})proaching
beasts must hear it as I did ; and in my anxiety I
even pressed my breast with my hands in an un-
reasoning hope of silencing it. The noise was now
so close that it seemed impossible but that I must
see the cause of it, when suddenly another sound
caught my ear. A slow scraping sound, pai/f'i. ' '
distinct for a minute, while the other soundcca^cil;
tlien a rasping sound and a crash as of souie heavy
body falling, followed by a thundering rush, a
glimpse of four splendid deer, magnified by the
moonlight, bounding across one of the hazel vistas
some four hundred yards off, a sharp, clear whistle,
and then as the sound of the fiyliig deer died away,
the tramp of a[)proaching footsteps, and all was
over. The Cossack arrived first, and behind him
my German jager, woefiUly crestfallen, as well lie
might have been could he have known what black
wrath filled his companion's heart. The deer had
been coming strjiight to me when my frieiid,
alarmed by the tremendous noise they made
amongst the 'frozen branches, had attempted to
swarm the oak under which he had been placed.
For a time he got on very well, and then losing

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CRASNOI LAIS.

his hold on the slippery trunk, he came down on
his back with a crash that unluckily frightened our
game more than it hurt him.

So ended our first night's sport ; hue though
we bagged nothing, no real sportsman I think
would allow that a night spent amid such glorious
surroundings, listening to the voices of Nature in
one of her wildest moods, was a night wasted. At
any rate when we got home my rest was the
sweeter for my toil.

The day following this eventful night was spent
in preparations for the grand drive fixed for the
morrow ; but though there was much to be done,
our kind host arranged to give us some shooting
in the afternoon of this day also. Lunch over,
we took the hounds out — dark brown do^s with
tan chests and points, looking as if they had a
large cross of the bloodhound. The modus ope-
randi of the day's sport was simple in the extreme.
The whole forest was divided into sections, each con-
taining one square verst. Round one of these the
guns were placed, and then the forester and his
dogs went into the thick of it, and in a few minutes
the woods were full of deep- toned music. The
dogs seemed to me to hunt ev^ery thing tiiey came
across, from a stag to a ru ining cock pheasant,
and the business of the gunner was to kill and, if
possible, to bag the game before the dogs did.
There was a great deal of excitement, men shout-

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CRASNOI LAIS.

inii;, (logs ]>jiying, guns firing, nnd lijircs scuttling
to tho riglit Jind l(ift of yon, wliilo tln'ougli jill,
with a Ijeiiiitiful pertinacity which hardly allowed
him time to fire a shot, the veteran forester tootled
away on his horn. This would have augured
badly for our sport on the morrow but that the
forest was immense, and we were only in an out-
lying bit of it, from which we probably drove some
game towards our next day's ground. Although
the snow Avas covered with tracks, we saw nothing
but hares, of which we bagged about twenty.

T^ -' lorning of Thursday broke as brilliantly
as its }; lecessors, and the sun seemed if possible
to glare with a harder light on the frozen snow.
Outside our door the forester was apparently on
the point of knocking down three or four Cossacks
almost as excited as himself. His voice rose to a
scream, his arms kept swinging about; even I
knew enough Russian to hear that he was swear-
ing awfully, and I had my fears lest something
had happened to mar our day's sport. However, he
finally calmed down, and presently I heard him call-
ing a huge-bearded rufiian a little dove (golubchik),
whom he had addressed as the son of the most
immoral of the canine race not five minutes before.
He was merely explaining some of the minor details
in the business of the coming day, he told me
afterwards.

About 7.30 a Cossack colonel, with a hundred

CRASNOI LAIS.

ve some

of his men, turned up. Tliis was the local Nimrod,
and these the beaters he brought with him ; and
a wilder lot to look at, a more thirsty lot to re-
fresh, a noisier, more froUcsome lot altogether, you
could not find even at Donnybrook fair. With
the colonel came another Russian and a couple of
young Frenchmen, and this made up our party.

A huge sledge was in attendance for the sports-
men, and another for the game. The beaters were
sent on, and some of the more reliable entrusted
with a third sledge laden with eatables and a cask
of goodly dimensions. As the last Cossack dis-
appeared down the forest drive, we turned back
into the cottage, lighted our cigarettes, and having
collected our ammunition, took our places on the
sledge waiting for us, and drove merrily to the
meet. On our way the overhanging branches
caught us now and again, sweeping one of our
number into the snow, amid peals of laughter from
all but the victim.

Arrived at the rendezvous, strict silence was
enjoined, the guns were posted, each a hundred
yards or so fi-om the other, along one side of the
division, with orders on no account to leave those
posts until told to do so. Meanwhile the Cossack
colonel had taken his hundred men to the opposite
side of the section, and all being in readiness, we
heard his horn signal ' forward,' and then all was
silent as the grave. Every eye was strained on

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the l)uslios iind thick covert in front, every car
intently listening for tlic patter of feet or the sonnd
of breaking brushwood. l»iit as yet no sound :
(iven \\\(\ (^)ssucks were too distant to \m\ heard
as yet. Did some one move along the line ? No,
every soul is still as we are. Again the crash ;
the sound that set our hearts beatinff a few ni«;hts
ago, but now far less startling in the daylight than
it was then in the shadows and stillness of night.

lien* they com (^ trooping towards our line, fonr
do(^s and a tall stag in front, half trotting, half
walking, tossing their dainty heads up and down
as they approach. They advance straight to-
wards the oak at which I saw my German friend
j)osted, and 1 reluctantly hold my hand that he
may make the best of his chance. Nearer and
nearer they come, and yet no shot breaks the still-
ness, thougli they are almost past him. Suddenly
they throw np their heads, and witli a rush are
lost in the forest beyond, without a shot having
been (ired at them. My frien<l had of course
broken the rules, left his own tree, and gone off to
KVLW which seemed to him to have greater attrac-
tions. Thus the deer had for tlie second time
j)asse<l him un^ired at.

Soon the shots began to i-ing out, at first only
a dropping fire, though towards the end of the
drive the firing was so frecpient as almost to
rescMuble file-firing. After the red deer a wild cat

CKASNOr LAIS.

cjune towards lue, niovinjij softly over the snow ;
and us my tye followed liiin I became aware of
some dozen j^rey forms that had risen suddenly
i»lu)st-like all ron/ul me : one old han^ sittinii* ahso-
liitely under my tree and oa/'mo- a|)j)arently rii»idly
into my face. There she sat, listen ini^- to the shott*,
without stirrini>; for some live minutes, nntil in tlie
open hetwec^n two <^ivat oaks a fine red fox eame
trottini;' stealthily towards us, his hroad heavy
hrush spread, aiul seemini»* to trail on tlu^ snow
behind him, whieh threw his whoK^ i^raeeful, un-
dulatin«»' form out in bold relief it seemed ai»ain,st
one's Eiifdish natnre to shoot him, but it had to
b(^ d(me, and a, cluir|L»'e of heavy shot rolled him
over <m tlu^ snow. It setnned like shootini»- a
friend.

l>y this time the cries of the beaters had drawn
very near, some of their forms even showinij^ from
time to time in open phices. Three (jnick springs
and an abrupt pause in the bushes in front of me
now arrested my attention, but thinkin<»' after a
time that it was only another hare, I siiiijfled out
one of these long-eared gentry, and rolled him
over. 7V s I did so two roebucks broke covert, and
galloped rapidly past our Ivussian Iriend on the
left, who, making a neat right and left, laid them
both on the path.

This was the sliot (jf the dtiy. A bugle now
sounded a warning to turn our backs to the

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beators an<l only shoot as tho 2;aiiio pnssod us, tliiis
avoidinjij the chnnce of ban^inii: a beater. The
hares came thick nnd fast, and as tliey cantered
ste;idily away, a large number of them were
bagged. When we came out on to the path there
were four roes, a red deer, of which I had caught
a passing glimpse as she crashed along the line,
my fox, and thirty-seven hares. My fox I say,
but T wns doomed to find myself mistaken. It
seems after he had been to all intents and purposes
killed, he had crawled along the line and lain down
to die in front of the Cossack colonel. This
worthy gave him the coup (hi grdce, and claimed
him in consequence. The red deer too, whose
throat a Cossack's bullet had cut as neatly as if it
had been done with a knife, staggered on towards
the colonel, and here, as its knees trembled pre-
paratory to lurching forward in death, that gallant
officer put a charge of small shot in its haunch,
spoilt the venison, and secured another easy prey.
The rule of the chase is here opposed to the Eng-
lish rule, and, I think, to common sense. With
us the man who inflicts the first wound, with the
Russians he who deals the last, obtains the quarry.
After two more beats, in which more game of
the same kind was bagged, we repaired to the
sledges at the cross rides for refreshment. I was
much amused by the doling out of the vodka to
the Cossacks. The cask was mounted on the

CRASNOI LAIS.

sledge und there tapped, the forester, with three or
four to help him, forming the Cossacks in line, and
giving each man his nip ui rotation, which he
j)itched straight down his throat in true Russian
style, without ever giving the liquid time to wet
the sides in passing. As the men went down after
taking their nip, 1 noticed they coolly fell in again
at the other end, and in time got another turn.
One enormously tall fellow in a white sheepskin
hat, which must have heen double the height and
circumference of an English ' topper,' with a crown
of green cloth, got three drams in this way. J^ut
his hat and his height betrayed him, and put an
end to the affair.

During the rest of the drives the sport varied
very little ; first came the wolves, slinking out
almost before the beaters had entered the other
side of the covert, then the deer, wild cats, and
foxes in regular succession, and last of all the rocs
and hares. If there had been boars or bears 1
believe they would probably have followed the
wolves and preceded the deer. But there were
none seen all day.

When the game was counted out at evening
the bag was one red deer, nine roe, two wild cats
(splendid yellow tabbies, half as large again as a
large domestic mouser), three foxes, two skunks,
much prized for their pelts, and 1 75 hares, and this
divided amongst some twenty guns, of whom two-

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tliirds jicUmI only jis scMrecrovvs to the i^jinu!. Tliu
sport was »^oo(l iiii<l wild enough in itsi'lf, Imt poor
{ind without charm as c()ni])ared to the still hunt
of the night before.

Arrived at the forester's house, the iiares Avere
given as wages to the beaters, who exchanged their
skins f(^r vodka from some neighbouring drinking
sliop, and made a vast stew of the carcases.
With an enormous bonfire blazing, they made them-
selves merry on this rough fare until late into the
night, dancing wild, graceful flings and reels, and
singing nationid songs, in which a tone of melan-
choly and depression seemed to run through the
warlike character of a border ballad.

The whole scene »vas one which Turner's
pencil might have gloried in, but no pen could do
justice to the wild figures in their ragged sheep-
skins and mountainous hats of many-coloured wool,
lit up by the long red flames, and backed by the
hoary forest heavy with its months of snow.

In the morninfj: before leavin"; Crasnoi Lais we
saw a very curious instance of the sagacity of
wolves. A herd of roebuck had settled down in
fancied security in a hollow in the midst of one of
the forest sections. A pack of wolves had dis-
covered them there, and when we came in the
morning the forester showed us plainly by their
spoor their method of attack. At every few hun-
dred yards round the entire circumference of the

CRASNOr LAIS.

* quart.'il ' a wolf liad oiitcrcd it, and the wliolo
nark gradually roii verging towards the centre liad
surrounded and kille«l tlii'ee of the roes, which in
rushinir from one w(»lf iinist have dashed riiiht into
the jaws of another. My friend told me that he
himself had been witness of another instance of the
wolfs emming whilst driving on the post-road hi
winter. A cow and her calf were feeding by the
road side, and two wolves were endeavouring to
carry off the calf One of them kej)t froliekhig
about in front of the cow, rolling on the ground or
snapping at her nose, to distract her attention, the
calf meanwhile getting under her mother in rear.
Here the second wolf attacked her, and seemed in a
fair way to accomplish his object when my friend
drove by.

The natives have many wonderful tales to tell
of wolves, of which perha[)s the most incredible is
that if, when you are pursued by a pack, you have
the presence of mind to squat down on your
haunches, the wolves will come and surround 3'ou
in a similar attitude, and after some time spent in
contemplation will slowly retire, leaving you un-
molested. I can only say that the man who had
faith enough to put this to the proof would deserve
to live to tell the tale. It is in spring, Avhen
the she-wolf is followed by a part ( f her grim
suitors, that the Tscherkesses and (jossacks most
dread this animal, and then they say they are

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CRASNOI LAIS.

extremely dangerous, and that if you are unlucky
enough to wound the lady, nothing but their death
will release you from the attacks of her enraged
suite.

Having bid a hearty adieu to our host, and
taking a couple of roebuck with us to testify of our
prowess to envious friends at Kcrtch, we got under
weigh next morning on our return journey. On
our way I wounded an old wolf which I saw
slinking round some kamisli (reed) beds by the
roadside ; but though I followed him far into the
reeds I never bagged him, and could by no means
get another fair shot at hun with my rifle.

Three days' fast travelling saw us back at
Kertch, the heroes of the hour ; for though Ekateri-
nodar with its forest is so near, the Russian sports-
man is of so unentei*prising a nature that n ^q of
our comrades knew it except by report '^he
comforts of our English consulate were none the
less appreciated after the cold bare rooms of a
Russian post station in the Caucasus, and we both
agreed that though such sport was glorious, a com-
fortable home to return to was a blessing mightily
to be desired.

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

CHAPTER III.

ODESSA AND MISKITCIIKE.

Mountaineers and Shikarees — Outfit — Journey from London to Odeesa
— Snipe-shooting on the Dnieper — A drunken yemstchiJT. — A
collision — Prince Vorontzoff — Aloupka — Yalta — Livadin and
Orianda — Miskitchee lake — A Tartar butcher — Native hovels — A
shooting party on the lake — A dreary bivouac.

It was not until the August of 1878, three years
after the events recorded in my last chapter, that
a passage in a recently published book on \\vq Cau-
casus drew my attention agnin to my old hunting
grounds. It was Mr. Freshtield in this work (' The
Frosty Caucasus ') who wrote that in alibis travels
in the Caucasian mountains he had seen little more
game than a couple of tame bears in a Tscherkess
village.

This struck me as strange, and as I was at that
time meditating a sporting tour in some as yet un-
chosen locality, I decided to go to the Caucasus for
myself, and test its capacities to the utmost of my
ability as hunting ground for large game. Since
my return from Asia I have seen Devouasseux, Mr.
Freshfield's guide, who tells me that the author
was too intent on his favourite pursuit of mountain-

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ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

climbing to luivc iiiucli tiirie for looking for g'lnie.
And indeed the book itself leads one to infer
this. The climbing of ahnost impracticable moun-
tains and the pursuit of great game could not be
combined by any one. I'o achieve success in
either pursuit is enough for most men.

After passing a week in preparing my outfit,
which was by no means a formidable one, I was
ready to start. An ' express rifle,' a double-barrel
smoothbore (0. F. No. 12), fitted with metal
cartridge-cases, which when inserted converted the
gun into a muzzle-loader, a suit of moleskin, one of
Jlouch's photographic apparatuses, and 11 pair of
Dean's field boots, were the chief items in my
outfit. The first three articles are indispensable, the
other two absolutely useless, as I was unable to
work the one, and had but little occasion to test the
other. Besides, I believe Mr. Dean's boots are not
much good without the dubbin supplied witli
tliem, and this my servant promptly lost. No
doubt properly used with this, they are as excellent
as their many advocates believe them to be.

The most difficult thing to get was a really good
map of the Caucasus, containing the names of the
princi[)al small streams and villages. This I after-
wards secured in Russia under the name of ' Map of
the Caucasian Isthmus,' by Professor Dr. Karl Koch
('Karte von dem Kaukasischen Isthmus,' Berlin,
1850). In this map most of the important villages

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

ccess in

are markctl, and the names are siilliciently like tli(j.se
given them hy their inhal)itants to enable a stranger
to recognise them.

The journey from St. Katherine's Docks to
Odessa, via Vienna, has nothing in it worthy
of record. Most men who travel nowadays have
seen as much of it as they care to. For my own
part, having made the journey several times, I
think the things that have made most impression
on my mind are the gradual improvement in the
railway carriages, from the time you leave our
English abominations until the time you find your-
self surrounded with at least all the necessary con-
veniences of life on the last stage to Odessa ; the
gradual diminution in pace, until some little dis-
tance from your journey's end it amounts to little
more than a crawl ; the sudden clearing ;md
brightening of the atmosphere once you have crossed
tlie channel ; the predominance of blue in all the
dresses of the French peasant ; the absence of
fences to make a run interesting, if runs took place
in this land of vulpecides ; the disappearance of the
rook, and the appearance of his grey- backed con-
gener the hooded crow in his place ; the multitude
of magpies, and the loquaciousness of one's travel-
ling companions. I am afrait^ my readers, if I
have any, vail at once put me down as unobser-
vant, l)ut it may only be that first impressions are
lost if the same journey is often repeated.

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ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

Arrived at Odessa, my old chief and kind
friend, Mr. George Stanley, Her Majesty's Consul-
General there, received me with great kindness,
and to him and Mr. Mitchell I am indebted for
much valuable information and many acts of
attention. During the few days I stayed at
Odessa I had one very excellent day's snipe-shoot-
mg with Mr. Stanley on the Dnieper, during which
we bagged fifty-six snipe in an hour between
us. Of these, I am in honesty bound to admit,
that Mr. Stanloy, whose hand had not forgotten
the cunning acquired in Egypt, bagged by far the
larger share.

On our way home we had a specimen of the
driving of Russian yemstchiks, which would have
considerably lowered thein probably in the esteem
of their ardent admirer Sir Robert Peel. Our
fellow seemed a little the worse for vodka, and as
soon as we got away from the house at which we
had been staying, we had proof that his looks did
not belie him. The bracing air roused his spirits ;
his horses were ' little doves ' and ' sons of dogs '
in the same breath, his whip whirled about, and
tossing their heads in the air, the team (in which
there were two young ones) took the bit in their
teeth, and went away straight across the steppe, over
gullies, with a bump that would have smashed
any springs had there been any, down slopes
at a rate that took your breath away, and all

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

the while the yeinstchik laiigliing and swearing,
jnid not minding one bit. Two of his crimson
velvet cushions dropped off into darkness behind
him, and this probably sobered him. At last we
o-ot on to the track, and though the pace was still
violent, we were comparatively safe here. Once we
collided with a droshky, the driver of which wsis
unusually moderate in his oaths at the accident,
and passed on quickly and disappeared. We dis-
covered afterwards that a valuable piece of the
Iiarness of our own troika had been lost, carried
away by the droshky in the collision probably,
seeing which the droshky man had held his tongue,
and made off with his prize.

But our troubles were not yet over. As we
neared Odessa there was a sharp turn in the track.
As we turned I saw our danger, but there was no
time to avert it ; and in the twinkling of an eye we
charged a telegraph post. The tall tliin post ])assing
between our off leader and th shaft horse, cut clean
through every atom of harnch-, and set the young
one free. For a moment he stood dunned and
trembling, and then with a snort betook himself off
into the darkness as fast as legs could carry him.
This finally restored our driver to a state of most
solemn sobriety, and for the rest of our journey we
were conveyed at a safe and moderate pace by tlic
remaining two horses. The fellow was liu ivy
enough to recover his horse next day, but not

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ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

without considerable trouble and expense. I be-
lieve he tind two or three hired comrades spent the
night on the steppe looking for the stray horse.

After this I bade adieu to my kind friends in
Odessa, receiving as a last kindness from Mr.
Stanley an introduction to PrLnce Yorontzoff, who,
luckily for me, happened to be travelling by the
boat in which I had embarked. This introduction
stood me in good stead, as his Highness, who
speaks English like an Englishman, gave me letters
of introduction at Tiflis, by exhibiting the address
and external signature of which I was able to allay
the suspicions of the Cossacks on the Black Sea,
and otherwise help myself. I owe Prince Yo-
rontzoff many thanks for his ready kindness to
a stranger, and repeat them with the same sincerity
with which 1 tendered them when he left the boat
for his lovely place at Aloupka.

Aloupka is to my mind the finest castle in
Russia, in the most picturesque position. It is a
strange mixture of the half fortress, half castle, of
early feudal times, Moorish niiigniticence, Russian
luxury, and English comfort. In the distance it
looks massive and glorious, with magnificent
timber, gju'dens, and vineyards stretching down to
the sea at its feet, the grey summit of Aie Petri
towering over it from behind, and away to the
rijiht the Bear Mountain, couched with his head
on his paws, looking ever seaward.

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

Yalta itself is the Eden of Russia perhaps,
but it is an Eden in which most of the inhabi-
tants are invalids, all the hotels infamously exor-
bitant in tlieir charges ; and life, unless one is
addicted to tlie process of the grape cure, exces-
sively monotonous. The palace of Livadia is
beautiful, but would, I think, scarcely please
ordinary English taste as nmch as the magnificent
foliage (artificially arranged) at Orianda (the
Grand Duke Constantine's seat), or the stately
beauty of Aloupka. The mountains round Yalta
and as far as Theodosia are extremely fine, and
I know of few things more beautiful in an some
of the views to be obtained from their pine-clad
sides. I believe a few roe and chamois are to
be found on them, but these are at least partially
preserved.

Arrived at Kertch I was at home again, and
soon in my old room at the consulate. A right
merry time we had of it, and, as was natural,
devoted a couple of days to our old friend Mis-
kitchee, the lake that ' best of all lakes the
fowler loves,' on thtce Crimean steppes.

Miskitchee is the Tartar name for a villasre
some sixty versts fron Kertch : the lake, which
adjoins the village, shares with the latter its
name. The lake io a piece of shallow water
some two miles long by half a mile broad, and
nowhere deeper than up to a man's waist. It is

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

iilii!!

1' ,

for tlie most part covered with the high reed
called here ' kamish,' and on the mud banks round
its edges and in the little lagoons within the reeds
myriads of wild-fowl play by day, and chatter
and feed all night. Here have I had many a
good day's wild-fowling, passed many a merry
night, and had at least one adventure, which, as
far a;> T remember, was somewhat in this wise :
I had been staying at the house of the chief
farmer in the village, a Greek or Armenian — I
forget which — for some few days, on a shooting
expedition. One morning, about six o'clock, I
was tramping over some damp steppeland, where
pools were frequent, and snipe should have been
more so, but were not. After an hour spent in
looking for something to shoot, I had almost
resolved to be off again to my favourite lake, when
I heard a voice calling to me in Russian. Looking
up I saw a Tartar, rather a smart one too, in a
fawn-coloured robe and the inevitable sheepskin
hat, standing upright in a big flat cart, with a
troika of capital horses before him. On coming
closer I found he was inviting me to take a seat in
his cart, assuring me that he, too, was a sports-
man, and had to drive over a part of the steppe
that morning where game abounded. Having
no gun with him, he would show me where sport
might be had if I liked. However, roubles in
those days were rare with me, and I feared that

ODESSA AND MISKITZHEE.

if I accepted tl»e lift I should li.ivc to pay a con-
siderable fare, so I declined as graciously as pos-
sible. My friend persisted, and at last I told him
f ankly that if he gave me a passage to these happy
hunting grounds of which he spoke it would have
to be a free one, and include a return before night
fall. He consented at once, so without more adf>
I ffot into his cart, and drove off with him.

After a verst or two I began to find my friend
was no ' blagueur,' for in a very short time we had
bao'sred several hares and a few quail. His siirht
was the most marvellous I ever met with. Stand-
ing up in his cart, as he drove rapidly over the
uplands, he would from time to time pull up
suddenly, exclaiming, ' Vot zeits ! ' — Lo, a hare !
at the same time pointing to some distant object
on the plouglied land or prairie. It was no good
my looking, for I could discern nothing, so that I
had to dismount and simply trudge for one or two
hundred yards in the direction he indicated, until
sure enough, from under my very feet, the hare
started, until then utterly undiscemible to me.

And now the object of his morning drive was
revealed to me. On a hillside near us was a
mighty flock of sheep, tended by a few ragged
Tartar lads and one grey-headed shepherd, with
the usual retinue of huge mongrel sheepdogs —
brutes who go for you on every opportunity.
Hailing the old shepherd, a bargain was soon

lip I,!'

i i

!;;■'!

:■'.

I"! Il

lit ! I

ODESSA AND MISKJTCIIKE.

struck, and we dismounted to choose our sheep.
My friend plunp^ed in among them, and after
regarding many with the eye of a profound connois-
seur, chose f(3ur. 'IVj choose them was easy, to
secure them seemed less so. Kicking off his shoes
and roUing up his long loose sleeves, the purchaser
tried to approach his purchase. The more he ad-
vanced the more rapidly the sheep retired, trying in
vain to lose himself amongst his comrades or sub-
stitute another in his place. But the Tartar was
not to be done, and in a quarter of an hour three
were secured, caught by the hind leg, jerked over
on their back, all four legs tied together, and
bundled into the cart. Ambitious of imitating my
friend, I too took off my boots, and made frantic
efforts to collar an innocent-looking beast. After
an enormous waste of time I did get hold of a leg
of mutton, though not, I believe, the right one.
The jerk was neatly given, but alas ! not by the
right creature. In a moment I was sprawling, and
in another the whole flock was romping over my
breathless body. How I extricated myself I know
not, but when I did I sat me down, feeling sheep-
ish in more ways than one, and resumed my boots
a wiser, though a sadder man.

Having got our whole cargo on board, we set
off for the nearest Tartar village, killing on the
way another hare. By the w.ay, whenever I killed
anything, my guide insisted on cutting its throat

ODESSA AND MISKITCllEE.

and breaking its legs, a sni)erstitious observance,
I have since heard, common to all Mahometans.
Arrived at the village, an old man (the moollah I
think he was) climbed to the to]i of a low hovel in
tlie middle of the straggling main street (if streets
there are in Tartar 'aoids'), and shouted hhnself
hoarse in the Tartar tongue. What he said I knew
not then, but from subsequent events I believe it
Avas to the effect that the good butcher, Lotso, had
brought with him five fat sheep, all or any of
Avhicli he was prepared then and there to convert
into mutton, if sufficient customers were forth-
coming. Any one who wanted mutton, to raise
his hand. After a great deal of talking all by
himself, the moollah came down from his perch,
and a crowd forming round him, a tremendous
row ensued. It looked like being a free fight, but
it was soon over, and i)erhaps the Tartar house-
keepers may take to themselves the credit of settling
on the joint for the day sooner than their English
representatives at home.

The purchases being settled, a sheep was se-
lected fi-om the cart, and carried to a stone trench
hard-by, its throat cut, and the whole operation of
skinning and dismembering completed in a very
few minutes. Meanwhile a number of gaunt curs,
drawn by the smell of blood, had crowded round,
and so hardy were they tha.t it wa8 all a dozen
Tartars could do, whirling their knouts round the

E 2

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE,

1)iitdior US tlic whips do wlion tlio huntsman is
lu'caking up his fox, to keep the brutes at bay.
Then the meat was parcelled out, the money paid,
cash down, the entrails, tied up in the skin
(l)utcher's perquisites), thrown back into tlie cart,
and after a drink of sour cream at the dirty brown
liands of a Tartar princess, we were on our way
for the next village, to repeat the same process.

And now all our sheep having been slaughtered
nnd sold, tlio gloaming came on, and with it a
hunger on my part that made me anxious to get
back to my quarters at the friendly Armenian's.
Turning to the Tartar, I su^fmisted our return,
when he coolly informed me that I had better make

up my mind to pass the night at his house at J ,

namintf a villajije of some half-dozen houses, at
which an exccr.'ible murder had occurred some
months previously. It may have been the memory
of this, or it may have been his ghastly handiness
with the butcher's knife, or perhaps the thought of
my cosy quarters at Miskitchee, that made me
resolve that go to that place I would not. Accor-
dingly I reminded him of his promise. All the
satisfaction T could i»et was that if I wanted to jro
back I must walk. Did I know in which direction
]\Iiskitchee lay ? Yes, out yonder, over that low
line of hills. A grim laugh, and the assurance that
Miskitchee was in an exactly 0])posite direction,
increased my suspicions of my quondam friend, as I

jirll

ODESSA ANJ) MISKI'ICHEE.

knew by ccrtuiii Ijiiuhiuirks tliut he lml^t W. lyiiii:,'.
A nioUK'ut's foJisidt'i'utiuu showed iiie tluit u walk
at this hour, even su|HH)sln^' 1 did not lose my way,
woukl end probably m aniglit oji the step])e, at the
mercy of this man (h* any other who ehose to stalk
me, and surprise me in the dark or in my sleep, to
say nothuig of the ahsolute necessity in case of
my leaving the cart of abandoniniz; my game. So
1 changed my tactics. He had no firearms, and
sat on the edge of the cart. 1 liad my gun, and sat
behind in the body of it. Mustering what little
iiussian 1 knew, I let him understand that I held

him to his promise ; that I had heard of »! an<l its

evil reputation, and didn't mean to go there ; that
r knew the track now on our right was tlu; home
track ; and that, if he refused to take it, I Avould
blow him off his cart with a charge of No. 5. This
was a rough argument, and he seemed nonplussed.
He tried to argue me into going another way ; he
tried to laugh me out of my suspicions — he even
began to bully. 1 simply watched him, re]>eated
my proposals, and sat still. Meanwhile the horses
were pulled up. Then my friend tried to slip olf
his seat, and so get out of his awkward position in
front of my gun's muzzle. 1 cocked my gun with
a click, and brought it in a line with his back. There
was a moment's hesitation, and then with a curse
he took the right road at a sulky pace.

All that drive 1 never took my eyes off him,

'l ''i

,111

1
i 1

ODESSA AAD AIJSK'ITCI/EK.

and never let go my gun. Gradually he seemed
to become better tempered, and when we got within
half a mile of Miskitchee he turned and npoke to me,
to assure me that further than that nothing would
induce liim to drive me.

Satisfied now that I could get home in safety,
I got down, taking a couple of hares and some birds
with me, leaving the rest for the Tartar, and walked
off to Miskitchee, thankfid to have got off so well. On
my way back I thought 1 liad probably been over
suspicious, and made a fool of myself. However, on
my arrival, I found I had been seiu'ched for all day,
and great anxiety had been felt for me. It sceuis
juy butcher was of more professions than one, being
indeed the most notorious liorse- stealer on these
steppes. He had camped near the village the niglit
before, and made several inquiries about me, having
seen me returning from shooting that niglit. He
had also expressed great admiration for my gun, a
rather liandsome breech-loader. This, together vvitli
the fact that the butcher, one of my host's best
horses, and myself had all disappeared simultane-
ously next morning, accounted for the anxiety felt,
as well as for the butcher's objection to return to
the village that night.

Such was one of the memories Miskitchee
called up in my mind. But on this my last visit
I saw little to remind me of my adventure. The
Armenian had, 1 1)elieve, gone, and tlie whole

()/)/-:SSA Ai\'l) MISKITCIIKE.

villa<''<3 looked iiHlcep in the smisliiiuius wo pas^scd it
hy: II 8tmgglin<( gr()U[) ot'oiic-storlud hovels, Nvitli
tlie sunlight glinting on rows of* yellow gourds on
the thatcli ; a dark, good-looking Tartar girl in a
scarlet cap and many ringlets, much bespangled
with small gilt coins, standing in a doorway,
round which there was some sort of an enclosure.
At another cottage door, with his legs in the njud
of the main street and iiis (piarters on the somewhat
drier mud of his dining-room floor, lounged, ciga-
rette in mouth, a piuk-shirted I'nssian moujik.
Inside the hovel, if we had had time to look, we
should probably have seen a heap of bedclothes
between the roof and the top of the oveu ; this
would be the baboushka's (grandmother's) bed.
A wooden bedstead Avith more disarranged clothes
on the floor ; here the rest of the family, mother
and father and brats, all sleep ; a filthy, open fire-
place, in one corner ; a ragged woman, of ape- like
propensities, combing a dirty child in another ; and
on the floor two more half-naked brats, fijjj-htinii'
over the family loaf of black brend, from which
they are in vain endeavouring to hannner a morsel
with the back of an axe. From a blackened
greasy beam overhead, adorned with a few strings
of onions and withered apples, a dim light shines
down upon the whole, proceeding from a tin of
mutton fat, which makes the whole interior as un-
savoury as it is ugly.

!l ,1

ill ^
i|i|Sij|

ill

in; i:

'I iiiii
I

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

Gludly, then, \ve left the villtige beliuid iis, and
drawing \\\> onr droshkies under the lee of a high
natural embankment beside the lake, prepared to
pass the nigiit there. A hole v/as dug in the eartli
and a subterranean fire nuide to cook over. Our
bourkas stretched over tlu^ drosliky made a kind of
refuge between the wheels, into which we could
crawl and sleep in case of rain.

These and other little preparations !;:? ving been
at least ^ tarred, we beo-an our shootiii'''. Two yuns
went round the lake, one on eitlier side ; one
worthy sportsman might have been seen arraying
himself m Mr. Cording's famous hose ; another,
simpler and perhaps wiser, divesting himself of all
the trammels which civilisation has thrown round
the lower limbs of bipeds. The wading party,
Cording's follower, and 'the unadorned,' made
tlirough the shallow lake for the reed beds in
the centre ; here carefully concealed to rea}) the
benefit of the stalking party on either shore. The
fifth gunner, a tall thm German from Riga, tbr very
best of good fellows, with the longest of legs, had
taken to himself a larije bisciut-tin, the which he
had deposited on a smrJl sand-biink in the middle
of the lake. Seated on this, in his trim attire,
which no campaigning could ever make less natty,
with long limbs overspreading all the surrounding
country, our friend 1>. awaited the dodgy duck.
The men m tho reeds had the best of it, though

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

the shooting was hardest there, aiitl as we had no
retrievers we never i^ot a quarter of the birds we
killed. The isolated gentlemn'i on the bisciiit-tin
tjot a few lon«jj shots, and as his birds all fell in
open water, got most of what he killed. 13ut, alas,
when he attempted to rise to gather his birds, he
Avas distinctly seen to stick. Vain were his efforts
to rise erect. The misguided biscuit-tin had sunk
into the treacherous mud bank, slowly but surely ;
the part next upon it had followed, and the pride
of Kertch had apparently taken root in the wastes
of Miskitchee, However, fate was kind, and by
the united efforts of his friends he was rescued
from his ignominious position.

The shore shooters came back tired but happy,
though their bag of one cormorant, several red-
legged gulls, and a large variety of waders, with a
few duck, was rather ornamental than useful. The
man of the biscuit-tin and ' the imadorned ' con-
tributed some mallards, tetd, and a couple of pin-
tail, with a few snipe ; and after counting out the
bag, all drew round the tire to imbibe the cheering
' tehai ' (tea). But why this gap ? Our friend in
waders is still absent, and yell loud as we like we
get no response from the little reedy island in
which he w^is last seen. For half an hour we
waited, and then we heard a gun fired right in the
middle of the swamp. Again we shouted and
fired, and this time got an answer, but it was not

s«

ODESSA AND MISKirCHlZE.

ill

until the sky grew dark and the smoke from our fire
could be plainly seen against it, that our friend
found his way out of the maze of reeds in which
he had been wandering round and round for nearly
a couple of hours.

After our pipes had been lighted, the rain came
down in torrents, forcing us all to creep under
the droshky, and a very close fit we found it.
However, by curling B.'s legs three or four times
round his waist, we did manage it, and lay there
smoking and listening to the old Gorman jiiger's
ghost stories, culled from the forests of Germany
and the plains of Asia, until ihr into the night.
And never had a teller of weird legends fitter
accompaniments than the nullion voices of the lake
at our feet and the ceaseless peltmg and buffeting
of the storm without.

One more shot at the duck in the morning,
and then we turned homewards. My time I felt
w^as getting short, and it was high time that I
sailed for the Black Sea coast, although I was
nothing loth to have delayed these two weeks,
feeling that now I was tolerably certain to escajie
the Circassian fever w^hich is so prevalent in early
autumn.

THE RED FOREST AND BLACK SEA COAST. 59

CHAPTER IV.

THE RED FOllEST AND BLACK SEA COAST.

Journey to Taman — Downpour on the steppe — Tscherkess bourkas —
Long-tailed horses — Absence of cultivation — The Moujiks — Causes
of political discontent in Russia — Veneration for the (Jzar — Cheap-
ening supplies — A liussian writer on Englishwomen— Post stations
— A terrible tragedy — Hotels — Ekaterinodar — The fair — Russian
tea — Russian police— Bivouacking with Cossack foresters — Exciting
sport — Shooting a white boar — Sad disappointment — Pheasant-
shooting — A Cossack colonel — An execrable journey — ('aucasian
women — Great consumption of supplies — In a Cossack saddle-
Mineral springs — A scorching bath — Lotus-eaters — Incidents of
the road — An insolent Tartar — Parting.

On Saturday, October 7, I left Kertcli for Eka-
terinodar, intending to liave a week's sport at my
okl (juarters in tlie Crasnoi Lais (lied Forest),
having written to that effect to Colonel R., the
forester, about a week before. My mipedimenta
were a portmanteau, my gun and rifle, together
with a pointer (Calypso), which I had purchased
from an old shooting companion at Kertch. My
intention was to have some shooting in the Suran
district, where bears are said to be plentiful, to
stay a few days at Vladikavkas, thence to pass on
to Tiflis, and from Titlis across the little known
Mooghan Step[)e to the Caspian. But it is hardly

THE RED FOREST AND

worth wliilu to mention my pluiis, us tlicy nearly
all suffered change, ami it would have bueii better
for me if they all had.

At Taman, whilst the horses were being har-
nessed, I was kindly entertained by the chief of the
JIussian Telegraph station, from whom 1 gained
a good deal of general information. I may say
once for all, that Avherever I went I met with
the kindest attention from the employes of the
Telegraph Companies, whether Russian or Indo-
European, and I heartily connnend to their kind-
ness any one who may be inclined to follow on
my steps. But the jingling bells, whose ceaseless
monotony was to be my only music through many a
day to come, warn me to drink up my coffee, light
a pipe for the journey, and be off.

The country round Taman had improved some-
what since I saw it last. People used to declare
nothing would grow there ; but now that some
Greeks have settled round the town, fine onions
and other garden produce are daily sent in, grown
within a mile of the bazaar.

Once well out on the steppe, in a flat open cart,
with no shelter of any kind and retreat impossible,
down came the pitiless rain. No fitful April shower,
but a good conscientious downpour, large drops
and plenty of them, for the rest of the afternoon.
Here, then, was my first omission in fitting out for
an expedition. An umbrella would have looked

BLACK SEA COAST.

ridiculous, and been for various reasons useless ;
but the umbrella of the country, the Tscherkess
bourka, should have been among the first of my
purchases.

This bourka, without which no one thinks of
travelling in this country, is a large piece of felt,
of a good quality, extremely light for its size, and
really waterproof. It fastenrs round the wearer's
neck, and hangs like a bell-shaped tent from his
shoulders to his knees. Bourkas vary in texture
and quality, as well as price ; some being white,
others black; some as rough as a Skye terrier, others
almost as smooth as a '{-revhound. The best are
black and alaiost smooth, and cost as much as
thirty or forty roubles (four or five pounds). After
his kinjal and his horse, I almost think a bourka
is the Cossack's most valuable possession; and rolled
in these things, I have seen the hardy fellows
sleeping placidly on a wet truss of hay in the midst
of a perfect November deluge.

After going for a verst or so, my yemstchik came
to his first halt. The horses here wear their tails,
like the ladies' trains at home, preposterously long ;
and a dozen times in our drive of twenty versts, liad
we to pull up whilst the driver wrung out the mud
from one of these sw^eeping appendages, and tied it
up into a less comely but more convenient bob.
Without this the horses couhl not have done the
distance at all. As for myself, I was speedily

THE RED FOREST AND

sodden throuf^h, while my face wns like that of a
plaster cast with its eyes bimii^ed up.

It is a pitiful thing to see all this useful land
untilled, and all the peasantry and the country
itself so i)oor. My friend the Russian telegrjiph
clerk told me a few more reasons besides the per-
petual ' prasnik ' for the want of agricultural energy
and success in the Caucasus. The very abundance
of land is an evil to the short-sighted Russian
peasant. Here in the Caucasus I am told every
' soul ' (the Russian phrase for every male subject)
is allowed sixteen dissatines (acres) free of charge,
and he may choose his land pretty well where he
likes. The result is, the moujik argues with him-
self pretty much after this fashion : * In this par-
ticular spot where my cottage is, my corn won't
grow well, elsewhere it would grow better, and in
a third place another crop would find a fitter soil.'
So on this principle of not trusting all his ventures
to one bottom, he takes a few dissatines here and
another few ten versts oflF, and still more beyond.
In this way he wastes an infinite amount of time in
making perhaps a threshing floor at each different
farm, or in conveying the crop from one farm to
another to be threshed. Add to this that water has
often to be fetched from afar, that his tools are of
the rudest, and that his m(!n are, even if all were
workers even in the English sense, far too small for
the acreage, and you have some reasons for the

BLACK SEA COAST.

want of that agricultural wealth which Russia
ought to possess. It seems the greater pity, since
the moujik is such a frugal, hard-living man, and
barring vodka and ' prasniks ' might do wonders.
He can turn his hand to anything, is always cheer-
ful, and almost his only glaring vice is drunkenness.
A peasant family here, I am assured, will live in
what is to them comfort, food and clothes and all
included, for from eighteen to twenty roubles a
head, i.e. from 2/. to 2/. 5.s., per annum. But
then we must bear in mind that meat is a thing
a Russian peasant rarely eats. In spring black
bread and an onion ; m summer black bread and
arboose (water-melon) ; in winter black bread and
cabbage soup, with a dry fish now and again as a
honne houchc, suffice for his simple wants. Then,
too, his liquor is infinitely cheaper than that of our
beer-drinking peasantry. For three copecks (about
a penny) he can get nearly half an English tumbler
of the abominable neat rye spirit, in which he de-
lights, and some of them will even drink spirits of
wine and petroleum, which, I presume, is even
cheaper than vodka.

The proprietor of the oil-wells at Tcheerilek,
Mr. Peters — since, I regret to say, dead — has him-
self told me that some men w^orking on his estate
thought as little of tossing off a ' stakan ' (small
tumbler) of petroleum as I would of drinking the
like quantity of Bass. In addition to these things,

THE RED FOREST AND

tlie moujik's clothes arc as simple and inexpensive
as his diet : in winter a toga of sheepskin, with the
woolly side in, a scarf round his waist and sheep-
skin hat on his head, a pair of long boots that cost
him more than all the rest of his outfit, but are un-
rivalled for their long wearing qualities ; in sum-
mer a calico shirt ; and summer and winter you may
see his wife and brats going about, in snow or sun-
shine, with nothin«ic but a sinijle linen ffiirment
between them and the weather. His winter outfit
is perhaps a trifle costly, as compared to the rest of
his expenditure, but then it is wonderful how long
one suit of clothes will last a moujik ; and like a
wise man he always prefers old clothes to new, so
long as they will hold together.

With such a thrifty peasantry, and so much
valuable land, surely better results might be
obtained.

I believe that the whole of the misery of Russia,
her political discontent, her Nihilism, and the foul
crimes of which it has been the cause, are due, not
to the autocratic form of cjovernment under which
she exists, and to which, in spite of the outcry of
the few, the majo ty of Russians are firmly wedded,
but to the utter want of religious training amongst
all classes, and to that widespread corruption in the
official world, from which all who come in contact
with it suflVjr continually. Were there less com-
pulsory military service, more religious training,

BLACK- SEA CO AS

greater encoiirji;;ement given to agriculture, and
more inducements held out to foreigners to settle in
the waste places of Russia's vast empire, so that hy
their example they might teach her own people
how to make the best of tlie natural advantages
they enjoy, there might then be a chance of hap-
piness and prosperity for Russia and her people.

There is in every Russian moujik an inlicrent
love of the Czar, a personal loyalty to him, which
deifies and renders its object infallil)le in the eyes of
his subjects, and this takes much to oradicnte.
Could this feeling be fostered rather than destroyed
by the injustices of petty provincial officials, who
to the peasant are the only direct representatives of
the supreme power, regicide and revolution would
be things unknown.

The only complaint I ever heard from peasant
lips in Russia of the Great White Czar was, he is
too far off, he is deaf, our voices cannot reach him
through the crowd of rascals who hedge him in.

To-day I myself was destined to dine on
peasants' fare ; and though the bread was black and
damp, it was wholesome, and hunger gave the
meal the only sauce it needed. My night was
passed on a wooden sofa at Tumeruk, with my
pointer for a pillow, a style of repose that at least
ensured early rising.

At 5 A.M. I was in the market chaffering with
the peasant women for supplies for the journey.

THE RED FOREST AND

fin

1 1

Ikr.'i (frosli caviare) wns nearly two sljillinj]js a
pound, and frcsli butter tenpcncc. It is one of the
unpleasant characteristics of the Russian tradesman
that yon must always harjijain with him for the
merest trifle. It is only fair to say for him that it
is the fanlt rather of his customers than himself ;
for in Kertch, where we w^ere known, the trades-
men, knowing that the Knglish residents did not
care to haggle about a bargain, would ask the price
they meant to accept in the first instance, instead
of adding on an extra charge to be gradually taken
off to please the customer.

Whilst waiting in the post-station for my horses
to be put to, I chanced on the following passage in
a, Russian book of travels, by one Ivan Goutcharoff,
which I have taken the liberty of translating for
the benefit of my readers. Speaking of his sojourn
in England, he says: ' I did not make the acquain-

* tance of any families, so that I only saw the women
' in the churches, shops, opera-boxes, streets, &c., so
' that I can only say (and that to prevent your being

* offended at me for neglecting this subject) that they
' are very beautiful, w^ell built, and of a wondrous
' complexion, though they eat much meat and sweets
' and drink strong wine. Vet in other nations you
' will not find so much beauty as among the masses
'in England. Don't judge of English beauty (as

* Russians too often do) by the red-haired gentlemen

* and dames who come out from England under the

BLACK SEA COAST.

* 11 nine of ski[)i>ers, inaeliinists, tutors, and f^ovcr-
' nesscs, al)ovc all governesses. That would be a
' ffrand mistake. Beautiful women don't leave Ensr-
' land for tliis. Beauty is ca[)ital. Women as a race
'are worth nothin<]f in England if they have not

* some special talent. One foreign language or ac-
*coin])lishment for children is no great thing, so it
' only remains to go to Russia. The greater ])art of
'■ I^'uglishwomen are tall, well built, rather proud
' and calm ; according to many even cold. Tlie
' colour of their hair is of never-ending variety.'
Such appears to be the judgment of one who evi-
dently believed himself a connoisseur, and had had,
moreover, an o[)portunity of studying the far-famed
Circassian belles in their own land.

These Russian post-stations grow worse and
worse ; what may be the acme of evil at which I
shall arrive before I reach the Caspian, I dare not
fancy. They are bare of all save a wooden couch ;
no carpets, no provisions, no anything, except
the thirstiest of what Mark Twain calls ' sea-side
chamois.' We passed to-day a Cossack village on
the border of a large lake surrounded by ' kamish '
jungles, said to be the scene of a strange tragedy in
the Russo-Tscherkess war. ' A band of Tscherkess
warriors here met a party of Cossacks, who utterly
routed them, and the Avretched natives took refuge
in the depths of the ' kamish ' jungles. Here they

F 2

I I'

THE RED FOREST AND

!i i ■

stjiy(!«l till iii^'litfiill, wlioii tlio inyrijuls of veno-
iiioiiH mosquitoes, which make their home amongst
these reeds, drove them out, preferring death at tlie
hands of the Cossacks to slow torture from their
insect foes.' This is only a tradition, my authority
my yemstchik ; but from what I have seen of these
pests myself, 1 have little doubt of its truth.

The cold is getting (piite severe already ; all
the ([uail have gone, and last night there was a full
orchestra of wolves outside the post-station. At
the end of three days we pulled up at the St.
Petersburg Hotel, Ekaterinodar, and if anything
can be worse than post-travelling in Russia, it would
be the disappointment you suffer in the so-called
hotel accommodation. One of a long corridor in
the stable-yard, with only too ample ventilation,
my room stands a whited sepulchre, with an iron
bedstead, a wooden table, a mattress, sheet, and
dirty cushion, no washing utensils of any kind, no
bedclothes, a wicker chair, a broken bottle half full
of doubtful ^vatcr, and bare boards beneath. Such
is the lodging. For attendance, one dirty little
boy about twelve, and a pigmy for his age, waits
apparently on every one in the house. The cook-
ing, though not first-rate, is the hotel's greatest
attraction. Some one talks al)out man's heartiest
welcome being at an inn. If he had ever tried a
Russian inn, he would have reconsidered that state-
ment. Most of the guests at the Uihlc-dliotc are

niACK SEA COAST.

orticers, from \vliu!li oiu! would iiilt!!* tluit ivglmentjil
mt'ssc's are not in vogue in Unssiji.

In the niorninjr ;if'ter my arrivnl jif Kkateri-
nodar I was up betimes, and, witli a (Viend whose
a'M|uaintance I had made on my first visit, pro-
ceeded to tht! fair outside tlie town to pureliase the
indispensable Iiourka. Thanks to his exertions, I
was, in little more than an hour, the [)ossessor of a
nood bourka, shevoskiii whouba an«l c;ip, all pur-
chased for about I/. Attired in the costume of th(!
country, and si)eaking the language fluently, if not
well, I am less likely to attract the attention of the
natives, who, T am told, being for the most part
Mussulmen, arc bitterly set against the l^Jiglish
just now, ascribing, as they do, the misfortunes of
the Turkish Emph'e to our cold friendship, for which
they have, I fear, a harder name.

Ekaterinodar must be a prospering town, for 1
am told that seven years ago there were only five
stone houses in the place, and now there are up-
Avards of a thousand. Tlu; old houses were built
of reeds washed over with a kind of cement. The
fever, too, I am told, is on the wane, and, indeed,
it had need to be, for some few years ago there was
no worse fever den in the Caucasus. 15ut now as
the cart-tracks through the tow^n begin to look a
little like streets (though still of the roughest), with
every here and there in the most fashionable quarters
a hundred yards of uneven pavement, and, by the

'11

! f

^fi

•^ »i

f illi. i::

THE RED FOREST AND

help of cojiwtaiit prmiin^" uiid uprooting, the houses
hegin to peep lews blmdly throiiii,h the trees, while
a tolerably viii;oroiis town government prevents the
dej)osit of filth in the public thoroughfares, the
back of tlie fever lias been broken.

The w<^nderfiil richness of the soil is sufficiently
vsliown by a statement made to me by a settler here
to-day: ' If J don't clear my garden three times a
year from new growths, 1 should be unable to force
a way through it at the sd\v\ of a twelvemonth.'
It was in liis garden that I saw this afternoon some
of the largest gonrds I evor set eyes on, some
weighing over eighty poimds, while he assured me
that they sometimes reached as much as 120 or
1<S0 pounds. The people here make a substance
called cassia of them, on which they i'ivc, and with
which they feed their pigs.

Trade seemed to be very brisk in the town. The
fair was crowded, the shops fnll, and the streets
alive with conveyances' of every description. The
nundjer of military stationed here appears consider-
able, and the barracks are fairly imposing edifices.

Ekaterinodar l)0{ists of two cathedrals, of which
the old one, now in disuse, is to my mind the finest.
At night I visited the fair again, and a very lively
scene I found it. Out in the oj)en stood numerous
little tables, at which ni]>s of vodka and other liqueurs
were dispensed, for the most part by German Jews,
to little crowds of half-drunk Cossacks. Close by,

'III" li

:,:i

BLACK SEA COAST.

7»

through the open doorway of a tent, you (;iuii»ht
tlie glare of a liuge fire and your uosti'ils a savoury
fsujell of roasting nuitton. I'eeling liuugry, I en-
tered at one of ^Iiese open doors, and found myself
in a Ivahnuek refreshment booth, witli two or three
dead sheep lianging round the tent-i)ole anii a hig
semi -subterranean tire at the farther end. Here
several wild-lookini»: Tartars were devillini*- little
knobs of mutton on a skewer ; and purehasing two
or three of these sken^ers, witli their savoury })urden
on them all hissing from the coals, we made the
best meal 1 have yet partaken of in tlie (^auea.sus.
To wash this down we ordei'ed Kahnuck tea, evi-
dently quite the tiling to drink liere. The tea is
[)ressed in huge cake-like bricks, and is a])parently
of no very high quality. A square of this is hacked
off, boiled down in a pot, and the tea served up in
one soup-bowl between two, with a spoon apiece.
It is correct to add to it milk, huge lum[)s of
butter, and i)epper and salt to tastcj, when it resem-
bles soup a good deal mori; than tea.

It was not initil 8 r.M. next day (rhursdiiy)
that I managed to get my ' [)0(lorojna ' (travelling
ticket) and other things in order. At that hour it
was really too late to start on my hmg drive to the
lied Forest, but 1 was so sick of delays lliat I
determined to <n3t as far as I could that niu^ht, and
trust to hick for the rest. IMy yemstchik, who
had only a misty notion of the whereabouts of our

THE RED FOREST AND

journey's end, Wiis ji most melunclioly fcllovv, und
regaled nie for the first lionr or more with stories
of horrible murders and atrocities which had lately
taken place in or near Ekaterinodar, and would
liaA'e made the fortune of ' Lloyd's Weekly.' They
spoke little for the efficiency of the police in the
Caucasus ; but tlien a more miserable lot than the
Russian police generally, I never saw. They are
tlic smallest and Avorst men (physically) in the
army, and, as such, are drafted into the police
force. They wear a sword which they use to pro-
tect themselves against doiJ's, attackinijc small curs
with this formidable Avejipon with the greatest
ferocity. I speak here of what I have seen. If
they have a chance they are, 1 am assured hy b*us-
siaus, more likely to assist thieves than to hinder
them, and the following true story, which came
under the knowledge of a British Consul, may serve
to illustrate their ordinary conduct when applied
to as protectors of person or [)ropc;rty : —

'A certain lady, resident in the Crhnea, but not
a native, found her silver forks rapidly disaj)[)earing
in a manner difficult to explain. These forks were
tw^elve in nimiber, and marked with a crest or mo-
nogram. ( )ne only remained at last, and in despair
she searched the box of a Russian servant in her
em[)loy, whom she had reason to suspect of dis-
honesty. Here she found the eleven missing forks,
and, without disturbing them, sent for the police,

I :i!

BLACK SEA COAST.

made them seurcli the servant's hox, and thus tlie
culprit was taken red-lianded. The servant was
removed to prison, so were the forks. Time passed,
nothing was done. At hist, tired of waiting, the
hidy applied to know what was to be done in the
matter, and how soon ; at least, she pleaded, the
forks might now be returned to her. The answer
was, that it was necessary that the })olice should
have the other fork in order that they miglit iden-
tify the eleven as her [jroperty. In a weak moment
she serit her twelfth fork to them. The set was
complete. In a short time the servant was released,
and in spite of all her expostulations this luckless
lady never saw her forks again.' This occurred in
the Crimea ; the Caucasus is, I believe, under mili-
tary law, yet before I had j)asscd my six months
in the country, I was destined to become so fami-
liar with stories of murders and atrocities com-
mitted here from day to day, as to think little of
them.

Meanwhile, thinkinu; and chattinjT; of these
things, we had found our way by 10 r.iM. to the
forester's cottage. A huge fire was blazing out-
side, at which half a dozen grim-looking Cossacks
were smoking and toasting their toes. Inside the
cottage the cigarettes had gone out, and puffing a
last loniz: Yv'hiff of smoke throui2;h his nostrils, the
head-foreyter had betaken hiujself to dreandand.
The Costacks told us he had guests to-night, and

% I

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■. 61 :ii-

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THE RED FOREST AND

had not expected me. Remembering that a man
roused from his first sleep is not always in his
sweetest mood, I determined not to disturb mine
host, but instead took my place amongst the Cos-
sack guards by the tire, juid in spite of their looks
of wonder and ridicide, prepared to be comfortable
in my o^vn way. After some delay a kettle was
produced, and taking some tea from my game sack,
T soon brewed the odorous beverage, by sharuig
which with my rough companions I gained con-
siderably in their good graces. The night was
fearfully cold, and the stories the Cossacks told
almost unintelligible to me, owing to the patois in
which they told them, so that my pipe once out 1
was ready to turn in. One thing I ought to say
for these men, uncouth as they appeared. When I
knelt for a few minutes before turning in, every
one of them rose, left the vicinity of the fire, and
remained respectfully standing until I was on my
legs again ; and I may add, that wherever 1 have
met Cossacks I have found the same outward
respect at any rate for religious observances, nnd it
is my firm belief, that though prone to many vices,
they have more faith and a greater respect for the
nobler qualities of humanity, than most of their
more enlightened fellow-countrymen.

I slept that night in my l)ourka on the drcjshky,
and when I woke, thebourka, wliicli was bbick the
night before, was silvery with rime, while my

BLACK SEA COAST.

iiiou.sta.cLe was (luito luinl frozen. The forester's
cheery greeting, and tlie hot breakfast that fol-
lowed it, were welcome things indeed after my
hard night's rest ; and on inspection I found that
I had as usual dropped on my legs at the Ked
Forest. The guest spoken of by the Cossacks
was a certain Colonel 11., a German, who had come
a long way for a few days' sport with my old
friend, and great were to lie the drives in his
honour.

Our first day was very unproductive, however;
for though we got >;ome red deer on foot in front
of the sleuth-hounds, we never saw them. The
second day was as bad, until the afternoon, when,
on our way back, we heard in luiother (Quarter of
the forest a furious crashing, accompanied by
short tierce snortings. Old R.'s little wiry figure
actually stiffened with excitement, and his eyes
became more prominent even than their wont, as
he gri))ped my arm till it ached. ' Kabaii ! ' (boar)
was all lie seemed able to get out, and, indeed, I
was little less excited myself. Motioning to the
Cerman to guard the corner of the (piartal where
the rides crossed, he stole stealthily along a ri»le
towards the sounds, stopping every now and then
to listen, but never letting go my unfortunjite arm.
The sound was close to us, and now even my
untrained ears tohl me that the sound was niu<'h
like that of pigs in deadly strife. All at once my

! p iN
I hi!

:'l 112

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:|i|v:'

r/^iE /?i?/? FOREST AND

vivacious little friend dropped my arm iind pointed
to something in the dense brush. The trees grew
so thick here, and interlaced their limbs so closely,
that the forest shade was as dark as a summer
night, and I could see nothing. My friend gave
me little time to look, for clapping his rifle to his
shoulder he seemed to take a haphazard shot into
the thick of it, and let fly. Then there followed a
louder snoi-tini:^, with the rendinn; of more bushes
in hurried flight, and at last I had a glimpse of
three dark forms tearing through the covert. One
seemed much larger than the others, and at him I
fired. To my own astonishment, for the shot was
a very hurried one, he liirched forward, evidently
hard hit ; but he instantly recovered and went on.
I had a faint idea that some one was calling me
back, telinig me that I ought not to follow a
wounded boar in thick covert ; but as my hackles
were now fairly up, I crept and ran as well as I
could after my wounded game. The other two
guns made for various rides to cut off any of the
three boars that might come their way. Once or
twice I viewed my beast for a moment, but never
well enough to fire in my cramped position.

Meanwhile, the forester had been making what
he called nul^ic on his everlasting horn, and some
of his hounds hearing it were soon on the track of
the game. Hot, breathless, and almost in the dark,
among the nearlj' impenetrable thickets, I was on

BLACK SEA COAST.

the point of jL^iving uji the chase when I lieard the
dogs haying something not far ahead of me. 'Vo
creep to within thirty yards or so of them did not
take long, and then croncliing hehind the ])ole of a
huge oak, I waited for niy eyes to get used to the
darkness. Gradually I hegnn to make out the
dogs' stems waving eagerly to and fro, and then
under a leaning tree-stump, in the very heart of the
shadow, the indistinct outline of their enemy. The
music all this time was maddeninc^. The doijs'
clamour never ceased. The hoar kept half growl-
ing, half grunting, while through it all in the
distance came the tootle of our forester's horn.
Suddenly the mass moved, and a dog went flying
belly uppermost, and his yells were added to the
discord. But this movement of the boar's was
fatal to him, as it brought him into a more open
position ; and seizing the opportunity, T rolled him
over with my ' express.' Rising he tried to cliarge,
but though I fired again, I believe it was unneces-
sary, as he was too hard hit ever to liave reached
me ; still I had seen a man killed l)y a wounded
boar, and I naturally preferred to keep this one at
a distance.

This was the first really large game T had
killed, and I rushed up to him and gloated over
him with all the al)andon of a boy. I have sai<l I
had seen a man Killed by a boar, but I should
have added it was his dead body and not the event

THE RED FOREST AND

■}% ;.

whicli I sjiw. M<)rcM)vor, I IjjuI novor siu'ii :i wild
bojir before thin inorninu;, uimI how rs I contein-
])ljite(l my fjillen f(W a str!Ui<re uneaHiness beset me.
There was soinelliinuj so lioinely in the innocent
face of tliat dead ])iii^, tluit my lieart for a moment
misiijjive me. I»nt I banislied tliese foolish (pinlnis,
the reaction nfter my trinmpli |>ro])nbly; nnd ns T
heju'd the tootle of my friend's born nupronch I
sat myself down on a broad si<le of bncon an<l
induli»ed in a victorious wboo-ooj). And now tlie
bushes part asunder, and R., t:ikini»' in the position
at a glnnce, l)ursts into a cheer nnd loads me with
]>raise. But, alas! what is this? As my friend
approaches, slowly the t»ay smile fades, the ap-
])laudinij^ voice is still ; the horn drops from his
nerveless i-rasp, and the merry little visage
lcn«;'tbens out in a telescopic iashion truly awfid
to behold. ' Moe domaschne kaban ! ' Those were
the fatal w<n*ds that first left his erst joyous
lipn — ' My own house pii»;! '

Tbe Wow was too awful, too sudden. Tn my
pri<le I f<'ll. (i!ra(bially the fac^t was borne in on
my aln^idy half-awakened mind : ' wihl boars are
black, but this beast was wliit(>.' 1 had come some
thousand miles to slay a beast which I mii«ht have
found in any sty at home; 1 had accepted my
friend's hos]>ita.lity, and rewarded it by slayin«»' bis
one cherished pork(M'. How 1 smoothed binjdown
1 don't know, but I did it somehow. As for

BLACK SEA COAST.

myself, I novcM* (juito rccovorod until I had slain
a veritable wild boar lon^jj afterwards. Tiic faet
was, this wretched animal had broken ont of his
sty some months previously, and betaken himself
to the forest to take his fdl of love, chestnuts, and
other pleasant things. lie had apparently been
makinu; too free with the lady friends of his blaek-
wkinned brethren, and at the moment at which we
arrived was doini*' battle witli two of them for his
oflences. In the dark his own master had not
recoujnised him, so that then; was ample excuse
for me, and there was even a. i»'ood side to this
misha]>, inasnnich as we wrre all '••cMino- very
tired of roe-deer's llesh, an<l this forest-fe(l bacon
was a "Tateful chaiii»c. I>raij^i»in}'' him home with

j->rt ■

a sapliu«»' ailixed to his snout, was the poorest part
of the joke.

Durinu; the next day I did not recover my
spirits sufliciently to try for bii;* ♦•ame, so the
(Jerman colonel and myself devoted it to [)heasant-
shootini»'. The covert consists of thick r<'cd-beds,
the birds arc; of th<> orii»inal stock from which our
Kn,i;lish birds are derived, and in no way ditter from
them in si/e or api>earance. We killed very few, my
do<2j provin^i; utterly useless in thick covert, in
conseipience of which I _i»av(; her away on the Hrst
o|>portunity. I had n(» ri;j;'ht of course; to expect
that she as a pointer would be useful in covert, so as
the quails had gone and I should have very little

THE RED FOREST AND

open sliootin<^ for some time, \ tlionglit it bettia' to
part with her. I am told tliat throughout the Kuban
district, the tremendous frost of lS7fi, together with
the floods of the same year, destroyed most of the
pheasants. They certainly seemed scarcer than
they were during my previous visit.

At night, sitting up for big game, T saw a few
Avoodcock flitting bat-like across the rides, but let
them alone for fear of disturbing better game.
The night was lovely ; the fleecy white clouds,
floating through the network of dark branches,
produced a most charming effect. ( )f all the bird-
mimics I ever met, commend me to the owls
you meet with here. At one moment they bark
like a fox ; at another, yell like an evil-minded
infant ; at another, you hear them grunting like
swine, and creep on noiseless feet towards the spot,
rifle ready in hand ; and then the wretches shriek
out in eldritch laughter at your mistake, and flap
clumsily off to repeat the trick further on.

My last day in the Red Forest was spent in an
* ablouva ' (drive), which, being utterly mismanaged,
resulted in nothing but a wild cat and a few hares.
In the evening the German colonel and myself had
a very hot discussion about the habits of the
j^heasants. He apparently had shot both the
ordinary and the silver pheasant in different parts
of Asia, and stoutly maintained that the pheasant
never roosted on a tree or bush, but invariably on

BLACK SEA COAST.

tlie ground. My own assortioii tliat witli us tlu;
pheasant roosts in trees as a rule, and seldom, if
ever, on the ground, was ridiculed by both the
German and the forester, which, as both ap[)earcd
to be fairly keen observers, would lead one to believe
that the perching of our pheasants is an acquired
habit, and not common to their wild congeners.

As we wended our way homeward, we heard
in front of us the bells of a troika, and on the
bridge we overtook it. The horses were stopped,
and a volley of Russian salutations, in a voice
that might have shaken the clouds, greeted us,
while slowly from the folds of a dozen or more
wraps, a grim, gaunt figure of an old Cossack
colonel, about 6 feet 3 inches in length, unrolled
itself. The old gentleman was vociferous to a
degree, and much given to kissing and bebrothering
his friends. Having hugged the forester several
times, almost shaken my arm out of its socket,
and given a multitude of directions to the driver,
whom he addressed alternately as ' son of a dog '
and 'little dove,' he unearthed a quart bottle of
vodka, and patting it fondly, conveyed it to the
forester's hut, there to give his host a drink, and
tell us all about himself Although very red-faced
and very grey-haired, this veteran was about as
fine a Cossack as any I ever saw, with the bois-
terous manners of an English schoolboy, added
to the peculiarities natural to a Russian. In about

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WEBStlR.N.Y. 14580

\716) 872-4503

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THE RED FOREST AND

ten minutes lie luid ])ut me tln'ouf^^h tlie usual
catecliism, to which time and experience had
tauf^ht me to submit with the greatest placidity.
Who was my father ? What was my trade ?
Was I rich ? Married ? Why did I come here,
i^'C. ? To all these questions I had regular stereo-
typed answers. But when to the last I answered
that my only object was to kill big game, the old
gentleman's interest considerably increased. He,
too, was a sportsman, and knew the Caucasus
better than any man living, having spent his
whole life in fighting in it. At this very moment
he was on his way to an estate of his, three days'
journey from the Red Forest, on the Black Sea
coast, where bears and boars (if one were to
believe him) were so numerous as to seriously
impede one's movements. Would I come with
him and see for myself ? Naturally, as an Eng-
lishman I imagined little was meant by such an
oif-]»and invitation us this ; but to my surprise
the forester backed up his suggestion, assuring me
that if I did not assent I should miss a chance I
might never get again. Only half credulous, and
never expecting it would come to anything, I
assented, and, before I well knew where I was. my
things were bundled into the tarantasse, myself
after them, the old Cossack on top of all, the
farewells said, and I was under way again for
Ekaterinodar,

BLACK SEA COAST.

The (lays of preparation passed in Ekateriuodar
had in them nothing worth recording ; I gave up
my portmanteau finally and for ever as too large
to travel through the mountains on horseback, and
bought myself instead some Tscherkess saddle-bags,
in which I stowed three flannel shirts and a few
other things. My gun, too, I was obliged to leave
behind, and thus on the morning of our dei)arture
my entire kit had been reduced to a rifle and small
saddle-bags, half full of cartridges and gunning
implements. We were to have one other travelling
companion, an excessively corpulent cavalry otticer ;
and if I had little luggage, this Avorthy made
amends for my deficiencies. Pillows innumerable,
bags and food enough to last through a campaign,
while, as to bottles, I really began to think he
must be starting as a peddling wine or vodka
merchant. All this, as well as our three selves,
had to be j)iled on one fourgon, or four-wheeled
open cart, and when all the luggage had been
stacked on it, and our hapless selves perched on
top, we presented a picture of about as unlikely a
gToup to travel far without falling out by the way
as could be readily imagined. The old Cossack
got wedged between two of the largest packages,
and was thus pretty safe, but the ' plunger ' and
myself, sitting each on some shifting packages of
loaves, sardine-tins, or what not, had an exceed-
ingly merry time of it. Briskly our horses trotted

G 2

JSd

,iBl

11 ;

i 1

THE RED FOREST AND

niong in tlio keen morninjj^ air ; the roads were
liard with frost, and as the heavy cart lurched
from nit to rnt, and bounded from hole to hole,
we two resembled nothing so much as a pair of
erratic human shuttlecocks. As luck would have
it, both of us returned from our aerial flights in
time to go on with the cart, but at what an ex-
])ensc of finger-nails and other bruises none but
ourselves can tell. As for the 'plunger,' the
exercise acted on him like a rough sea passage,
and before long he was grievously ill, and I
frankly admit that in another hour I should have
been as bad.

The road on leaving Ekaterinodar runs through
marshes, and has been raised and constructed by
Government engineers, who receive a regular
subsidy to keep it in repair. With the money
they apparently do what they like. The governor
has not heard of the state of the road, or having
heard does not interfere ; the result is that it is so
infamous that passengers prefer a mere track at
the side to the engineers' road, which is practically
unused. And this seems to me to be the universal
way of doing things out here. The Government
seems liberal enough, and anxious to promote the
people's welfare ; more than that, considerable
sums of money are expended to this end, but
owing to the vastness of the territory, difficulty of
transit, and want of trustworthiness in its agents,

BLACK SEA COAST.

«S

the good intentions of the Government are too
frequently frustrated.

Never was I more heartily thankful than when
we came to whst was (for us) the end of this exe-
crable road ; and when at the Tscherkess village of
Enem we saw our horses waiting for us, I felt
almost content with the instruments of torture which
Cossacks call saddles upon their backs. The ' aoiil '
(village) was fenced about with wattled wjills,
and seemed a busy, thriving little i)lace, but as far
as I could see contained none of ihose lovely
women of whom one has heard so much in ' Lalhi
Rookh' and elsewhere. And perhaps I mwy ])c
permitted to say here that neither jit TiHis nor in
Daghestan, nor elsewhere in the Caucasus, have I
seen, either among the peasants or the u])pcr classes,
one single face sufficiently beautiful to attract a
second glance in London. 1 had heard so much of
Georgian beauty that, like the aurochs, it was one
of the things I had come to look for, and, like tlie
aurochs, I never found it. I have brouglit back
several photographs of typical Caucasiiui faces,
bought at various photographers, who seem to me
to have always chosen the Ijest-looking [)eople they
could find, yet even so they are by no meaus
strikingly beautiful. The men, if you will, are
many of them magnificent, and as handsome as
they are A^ell built ; but for the women, even
those who have good features are so totally devoid

III

.: *J

THE RED EOREST AND

■m

ol' expression, so extremely aiiiiiuil in tlieir aj)[)ear-
nnee, ns to almost warrant the Turks' conclusion
that they possess none hut ])}>ysical properties, and
are as soulless as they are insi|)id. Moreover,
they are most of them so wonderfully alike that
cases of mistaken identity must he common, even
with the most devoted hushands.

P»y the way, Tscherkess and (-ossack are fre-
({uently used amongst the llussiaiis as terms of
reproach, equivalent to robher .ind swashbuckler
respectively, and no Circassian ever calls himself
Tscherkess.

Here at Enem T got tlie first insii»ht into my
companions' ideas of travellini>\ We had perhaps
been on the road a couple of hours, and had break-
fasted as heartily as men can do, yet here we were
doomed to repeat the process. And to save further
reference to it 1 may say that our vast supply of
stores was by no means unnecessary. Every tAvo
hours throughout those three days we had a grand
feed, while in the intervals the 'plunger' nibbled
and nipped, the Cossack only nipping and smoking
perpetually. If these fellows require as nnicli
food cam}>aigning as they do travelling, they must
be a difficult lot to provide for.

At Enem we hoisted ourselves into our Tartar
or Cossack saddles, things in which you sit as it
were in a narrow deep vailcy between two gables,
your feet thrust into things like a couple of fire-

liLACK SEA COAST.

sliovds, with tlic corners of whicli yoti poke; 14)
the ribs of your ItoHiiuiiitc if he is tired or slii;L!;;jfisli.
Here, too, the I^^nj^Hsli e([uestri5iii meets witii ii
novelty in tlie pace of liis liorse, which luis hisen
tji!i<^ht to f^o at a kind of amble called 'enokod,' at
which pace the beast travels about twelve miles an
hour with very little fatigue to the rider. Very
few of the horses trot pro[)erly, and if they do, and
you attempt to rise to the trot as men do in l^ng-
land, you meet with so much banter that you are
inclined to wish that they did not. The horses
are for the most part small, and possessed of won-
derful endurance, ])ut thiire is one breed ol' horses
in the Caucasus that looks all over like makinu"
into good hunters — I mean the Khabardine. They
arc larger, finer, and faster animals than any
others that I have ever seen in Russia, and their
price is proportionately higher. A good Khabar-
dine costs from 200 to 500 roubles.

As wo journeyed on from l^^nem the country
became more hilly and more wooded, and at every
turn we encountered the pretty little trout stream
Pscekupz. How often we crossed that stream
before we reached the sea I should be afraid to
guess, but it seemed to me that we \\(\\\\ almost
as often in the water as out of it, and it is this
small stream that when flooded sto[)s this road to
the Black Sea for nearly half the year. A\e
stayed for the night at some mineral springs about

; I

THE RED FOREST AND

!'■ :i

forty versts from Kneiii, beautifully situated near
tlie J*sccku])z, witli lii^li, well-timbered hills all
round. Most of the trcjcs are youn<^ oaks, which
were now lovely in their russet robes. But there
are, besides, wild pear and apple, with everywhere
a thick under«^r()wth of hazel. At the mineral
sprin<^s is a Russian military hospital, and the
doctor in char«^e was our host for the night. The
hosj)ital is built to hold some HOD people, and it
was believed that this place would in time become
a fashionable bathing-place for the Caucasus.
Hitherto, however, the military have had it all to
themselves. There are a few good houses in the
place, and Government is erecting baths over
the springs. The si)rings themselves are of hot
water, strongly impregnated with sulphur, which
comes down from the hills at a temperatiu'c of 42""
IJeaumur. I saw some of the water, which was
colder, of a dull bluish grey, and stank horribly.
These baths are supposed to cure rheumatic atfec-
ti<ms, and my friend the Cossack pretended to
have obtained great relief from them. Nay, so
enthusiastic was he that, after taking them both
intern[dly and externally, he insisted on my doing
the sauie. Being in extreme need of a tub, I
complied with his whim as far as an external ap-
plication wont, Jind was parboiled for my com-
placency, feeling a good deal worse when I came
out than 1 did when 1 went in.

BLACK SEA COAST.

The si)rmg.s run through a white stone wliich,
thoiigli extremely hard on the surface, pulverises
at the touch the rnonient the outside layer is
removed. I am myself ignorant of geology, but I
was assured that this was quartz of a very high
quality, and excellently adapted for the manu-
facture of glass. If this 1x3 so, a glass factory
here would, one would imagine, be an extremely
reuumerative speculation, with any quantity of
timber and water-power immediately at hand,
and no rival factory nearer than Moscow, espe-
cially as glass is in the Caucasus a very dear
commodity, bad glass bottles costing from ten to
fifteen copecks. In the evening and in the morn-
ing we saw the worst side of the village by the
springs ; for on both occasions a dense white fog
rolled up from the valley high up the hills, com-
pletely hiding them from view, while the dew
lay on the grass like rain after a very severe
thunder shower.

We left the springs early, and shivered in our
saddles as we waded through the rolling fog
clouds, although in a few hours' time the heat
was quite oppressive.

I noticed to-day by the wayside a large quantity
of mistletoe, and have since remarked that its abun-
dance is not restricted to this one part of the Cau-
casus. The insects by the wayside were 'hyale,'
clouded yellow, red admirals, painted ladies, and

^ill

i; '.

''1 i:

J w

T//E KED FOREST AND

Hevcral vjirictlcs of white huttcrHuNS. I jUho
noticed some large pale yellow butterflies, iv^liich
may have l)ceii the common brimstone, but I
belicwc were not. I am pretty sun; too that I
recognised one ' comma.' We passed through one
or two villages inhabited by 'plastoons' (Russian
settlers), who in spite of the richness of the soil ap-
peared to be in the most abject |)overty. On ev<Ty
face the fever had set its yellow seal, and all the
women over forty were hideous enough to frighten
Macbeth's witches.

Truly, this Caucasus must be the hmd of the
lotus-eaters, yet what sorry beings these lotus-
eaters are. All round them such beauty as Ten-
nyson has dreamed of ; mountains clothed in gold
and purple, with the sea murmuring round their
bases ; wealth to be had for the taking, from the
too luxuriant soil ; and yet here the peasant smokes
and moons away his life, content to cull in idleness
just enough to keep body and soul together, and
only doing j ust enough work to provide for him-
self a crop of that weed in the consumption of
which he wastes life and energy, as well as the
money and opportunities that might be his. Each
village where Russians lived seemed to me more
wretchedly poor than the last, and it became a
relief to see liow few and far between the villages
were. The Tscherkesses, who made a garden of at
least some parts of their native home, might almost

nLACK SEA COAST.

9«

feel reven«»i'(l in contomplutinjr tlie utter I'uiluiv of
the rnec which luis suppljinted tliem.

liiit for us the <hiy was no (hiy of idUiness, but
rather one of considerables toil and difficulty. The
romf j^rew exceeding .ste(sj» anif nijj^.^ed, and the
little baj^f^age cart which we liad endeavoured to
send on by our men came; to gric'f, and was broken
beyond repair. 'V\\v driver, 'vho was on the top
of the baggage, ])robably asleep, got a bad fall, and
was rather seriously hurt. The tripod of my
photographic apparatus was broken, and the stock
of my rifle snapped short off at the pistol grip.
The 'plunger's* store of eau-de-Cologne, without
which this hero felt it impossible to travel, was also
lost in the general disaster, and he, poor fellow,
had very bad times throughout the day, having
had too miicli to eat and too much shaking np
after it. b'or a cavalry officer, too, it was some-
what undignified, when ascending one steep little
ravine, to slide off over his horse's quarters ; and for
a man of his weight it must have been as j)ainful
as it was ridiculous. Laughter went a long way
towards leaving me as helpless as he was, for a
more ludicrous sight than our gallant companion
rolling off behind, it would be difficult to conceive.

The night was, if anything, worse than the
day, for my old friend the Cossack, having a great
deal of pain from an old injury near his spine,
determined to cure it with hard drinking ; the result

•!'

' U ■

HP'

92 THE RED FOREST AND BLACK SEA COAST,

of which was that he became helplessly drunk, and
the * plunger ' only irritably so. In this condition
the nature of the man showed itself, and he amused
himself by baiting me, a stranger, and his friend's
guest, for the amusement of liis servants. At last
his insolence became so intolerable that, risking all
possible consequences, I got liim by the scruff of
the neck and gave him such a shaking as he had
not experienced even during the rough ride of the
last few days. It was, of course, extremely un-
pleasant for me, but my host was too drunk to
interfere, and there are some things which a man
cannot stand.

Next morning, after having spent the night
awake in a «tate of siege, uncertain what my quon-
dam friend's servants might think fit to do to me, I
had a wretched ride in my own society to Duapse,
the little seaport town which was to be the end of
our journey. The ' plunger ' neither apologised nor
called me out, as I had thought he might, but the
good old Cossjick behaved like a gentleman, and
although, of course, we were glad to say good-by to
one another at iJuapse, we parted good friends, and
I believe he exonerated me from all blame in the
matter.

H EI MAN'S DATCH.

CHAI'TKII V.

iieiman's datcii.

Duapsfi — Tscherkesfl eniiprranta — By the sea-shore — Superb scenery-
Drunken guides — A CoHSaek station — Bears — Take possession of
a ruined villa— Hidinf? our pro\ 'isiuns — Wild swine — Astray in the
jungle — A rough breakfast— Boi;t.^ iu file — A misstire — Forest
fruit — Lose our horses — A panthir — Night-watch — Shooting in
the dark — On the trail — Bui e — A friendly Cossack — Deserted by
my servants.

At Duapse there is an English (Indo-European)
telegraph station, so, though unexpectedly thrown
on ray own resources again, T was much hetter off
than I might otherwise have been. The Englishmen
gave me a cordial welcome, and were very good to
me. Duapse, I am infonned, is built on a graveyard,
in which are buried numbers of the victims of the
Russo-Tscherkefts war. In 1864, after the final
subjugation of the Caucasus, some 200,000 Cir-
cassians left the Caucasus for Trebizond, at the
invitation of their conquerors. They were for the
most part conveyed in small Turkish vessels, in
which they were so crowded, starved, and exposed,
that not more than half ever reached their destination,
the others dying en route. Of these a very large pro-

?■ '^■

I i

H EI MAN'S BATCH.

p(3rtion died near Duapse, and were there landed
and buried, or left to bleach, according to the means
of their friends. Their graves are still marked
by little mounds and inequalities in the ground
throughout the place. On their miserable journey
they sold everything they possessed, and I have
frequently heard in Kertch and in the Caucasus of
girls being sold for a few roubles, and valuable
daggers (the last thing almost that a Tscherkess
l)arts Avith) for about the same. Now Duapse is
a vilely scjualid hole, with two telegraph stations
and a governor's house. The steamers from Odessa
and Poti touch here, if it is fine, once a week, but
if there is any sea on they cannot come in, as I
was hereafter to learn to my cost. Why Duapse
exists, and still more why it has a governor, I
never could conceive.

It was, then, with a feeling of intense relief
that on October 21 I left Duapse behind me and
turned my horse's head southwards along the
Black Sea shore. I had managed to engage a
couple of Russian peasants, Ivan and Yepheem, to
guide me to some happy hunting-grounds of which
they knew, some fifty versts from Duapse. Taking
three horses, we loaded each with as much pro-
visions as he could carry, and then climbed on top
ourselves. It was difiicult work to so adjust your-
self and baggage, as to keep your seat over the
boulders. Grip was, of course, impossible, and

% ii

HEI MAN'S BATCH.

balance, with a shifting basis under you, ahnost as
much so.

The road lay between the base of the cliffs
and the sea, and as these two were in close
juxtaposition, your horse had at one time to wade
and at another to creep from boulder to boulder,
in places where even a goat would have to move
with caution. This lasted for fifteen versts, and
these fifteen have in rough weather to be avoided,
and a long circuitous route in the hills substituted
for them. After leaving these stony places, the
road winds up into the hills, and here the eye had
a feast indeed. All the way from Ekaterinodar
the scenery had been beautiful, but here it was
superb. Range upon range of hills, as far as the
eye could see, one behind another, and each range
higher than the last, until far away one caught the
sheen of snow-peaks against the sky. The autuiim
foliage was a never-ending glory. One shrub in
particular caught my eye, of stunted growth, with
a long oval leaf, which was now of the most bril-
liant shades of red. This shrub grew in immense
clumps, and the eff*ect at a short distance was that
of vast beds of scarlet geranium.

But the road in the hills was almost as bad
as the road by the sea, and after having done some
twenty-eight versts in the whole day, our horses
were done up, and so were we. Just after noon
m ' men stayed behind for some time, and I, think-

I ■

■n

!i $

11*

HE/MAN'S BATCH.

ing nothing of it, rode slowly on. In about half
an hour they rejoined, looking mightily pleased
with themselves, and very drunk. They had dis-
covered a large bottle holding about three pints
of vodka, which I had brought with me for our use
during the next fortnight. This they had quietly
sat down to the moment my back was turned, and
finished it. It was no good ray making a row
about it ; I was in their hands, and determined to
bear with them, at least until I found out where
game was to be found, after which I could decide
whether to keep them or try alone. Meanwhile
they had finished their grog, and as I did not
mean to give up mine, they would be punished by
enforced abstinence for some time to come.

A Cossack station m the Caucasus is about as
strange a place to pass the night in as can well be
imagined. Ten or a dozen privates, with the man-
ners of monkeys in the Zoo, all sleeping in the
same room with yourself and their officer, a young-
ster generally little better educated than themselves,
and thoroughly hail-fellow with them all. Such is
your company. Your couch the top of the ' petchka '
(oven), if you like heat and dirt, and are inclined
to pay for the berth ; if not, as much room as you
can get on the floor or on a form, with a Cossack's
boots next your head and a Cossack's head next
to your boots. For supper we got some barbel,
and a fish they called ' golovin,' which one of the

HE/MAN'S DATCH.

soldiers had caught ; and though tired enough to
turn in gladly even here, we were, I think, even
more glad to turn out again at four next morning.

On our way we came across signs of bears ;
m the first instance, in the face of a Greek settler we
met, whose nose and mouth had apparently got
discontented with their original positions, and had
altered them according to then' own fancy. On
inquiry, we found that two years ago the Greek
had been frightening bears from his orchard, when
one of them had attacked him and, striking him on
the head, peeled the face off his skull almost, and left
hhn still living in this condition. He was found,
and the face replaced as well as possible, but his
whole appearance was hideously distorted.

A mile or two further on we came across frr sh
tracks of a regular family of bears, who had been
down to the hij?h-water line lookin«; for waifs and
strays whilst we were sleeping at the Cossack station.

Mid-day found us at our camping place — a
ruined datch or villa belonging formerly to General
Heiman, built on an estate given him, I believe,
as a reward for his successes against the aborigines.
But the house was never finished and the land
never reclaimed. Where once the Tscherkess had
magnificent orchards, nothing nov/ remains save
here and there a fruit-tree, still bearing fruit though
sparingly, choked by the luxuriant growth of
forest trees. Through the doorless doorways and

H EI MAN'S BATCH.

windowless frames of the ruined villa, the big
trees branch in, creepers and blackberry bushes
grow merrily inside, while from the verj; hearth,
disturbed by our intrusion, a scared woodcock
bustles away. The sjiot had evidently been used
as a camping place by drovers before our day, for
all round the white skulls of cattle bleached on the
shore and on the sward, while remains of camp-
fires were numerous, although there were none of
recent date. All this warned us to be careful, so
that our first step, after turning out our horses,'
was to secrete all our provisions, &c. in a hole
beneath the flooring, and to destroy, as far as pos-
sible, all traces of our presence.

Having done this, we turned to the greenwood,
and indeed it was not far to go. Two dozen strides,
and we had almost to cut our way through the
dense undergrowth. After a time we forced our
way to more open forest, and here we parted. Not
twenty minutes afterwards there was a report that
set the forest shrieking. . something came crashing
down hill past me, and rumbled away into silence
down a deep tree-covered gorge. In a few minutes
I arrived on the scene of action, and found Ivan
and his mongi'el pointer gloating over a fine sow
he had slain. Having gralloched her, we hoisted
her on to the top of a blasted and broken oak,
and, there impaled, she presented to us a ghastly,
and to the jackals who soon arrived a no doubt

1 1 EI MAN'S DA TCJf.

very t.nntalising, appearance. However, wo left
them to their own devices and, feelintr sure of pork
chops for dinner, continned our hunt.

Twice I heard swine close to me, and both
my men saw game again during the afternoon ;
but tlic covert was so dense that we none of us
got another shot, and, what was worse, all lost
our way. The sun, which had been our guide,
went down all in a moment, and left us in the
dark without a compass to steer by. For two
hours and a half I struggled througli jungle that
tore me to pieces, and threw me down every few
yards. I climbed out of a ravine up the white
face of a cliff, gun in hand, which cliff I in-
spected by daylight on another occasion, and
would not climb again for the best day's shoot-
ing that man ever had ; and at last, fagged and
bleeding, came upon Ivan resting, with his pig
up aloft keeping watch for him.

After getting the pig down and finding Ye-
pheem, we started on the back track ; but, though
the track had been comi)aratively easy by daylight,
with no pig to drag along, we lost it in about
five minutes now. In another ten minutes we
were completely lost, and, realizing the fact, pre-
pared to meet it. We had, fortunately, between
us two boxes of matches, furnished with which
Yepheem gave us an occasional glimmer of light,
by which Ivan hewed away with his kinjal

H 2

: '

111

■!^

loo

H EI MAN'S BATCH.

through the tangled creepers, while I plodded
wearily on behind with the pig in tow. Two
hours of this kind of thing, added to the pre-
vious day's work, was more than I could stand ;
so we sat down, made a wood fire, and, by its
light, divided the sow longitudinally.

It was no good waiting for the moon to rise,
as she was in her last quarter ; so Yepheem shoul-
dering one half, and myself the other, we floun-
dered on again, to arrive at last at the ruin
about midnight, dead beat and starving, to say
nothing of being saturated with the blood of the
pig, and lacerated all over by the thorns of that
abominable creeper the ' wolf's tooth.' Then,
after one long pull at the whiskey bottle, I lay
down and slept where I was, too tired to wait
for the chops which the men were frying by
my side.

Nor were my men much less tired ; for when I
woke with a shiver at dawn, one of them was asleep
with his skewer of grilled pork almost untouched
by his side. Of this I speedily relieved him, and,
raking together the embers of the fire, which my
men had made under the flooring the night before, I
re-cooked the kabobs, and breakfasted, not perhaps
sumptuously, but with an appetite that made
amends for any defects in the cooking.

Whilst the men still slept.^ I went down to
the sea for a swim and a look at the country

H EI MAN'S DATCH.

lOI

round us. Looking from the sea you saw nothing
hut endless hills, growing gradually into moun-
tains, as they receded farther and farther from the
shore. Everywhere they seemed covered with
forest, he greater part of which was composed
of Spanish chestnut trees. Except a solitary
eagle, a few porpoises rolling about near in shore,
and one of my men coming down now to col-
lect driftwood, there was no sign of life anywhere.
After helping to light the fire and brew the tea, I
sent Yepheem to look for the horses, which were
nowhere in sight, and meanwhile Ivan and I took
our rifles and tried another part of the forest.
We had gone but a very little way when the
dog gave tongue, and was evidently driving some-
thing through the bushes towards us. Ivan ran
in one direction, I in another, to cut oft' the
game. Standing behind a big tree at the foot
of a small hill, covered with rhododendron clumps,
I heard a rustling through the covert, such as
some small animal might make if quietly forcing
his way through. I never dreamed it was our
game, but was still intently listening for the crash-
ing charge I was beginning to know so well.
Looking in the direction of the rustling, I was
thunderstruck to see three magnificent grey old
boars followin"; one another in sinoflo file down
hill, straight to my tree. The almost cat-like
noiselessness with which large and clumsy animals

I'hI

102

H EI MAN'S DATCH.

l!ii J'

can movo about in thick covert, is almost more
wonderful than the tremendous noise even small
ones make when so minded. I picked out the
leading boar, fired, and with a thundering rush
they were gone. How I could have missed him
I don't know, but I apparently did clean, and
for the rest of that day I found it harder than
ever not to speak somewlint unadvisedly with
my lips when a long loop of ' wolf's tooth ' caught
me up under the nose, or a hazel wand flew back
and cut me over the ear.

Later on in the afternoon we were all three
walking abreast, with perhaps a hundred yards
between each gun, when I caught a glimpse of
Ivan stealthily scrambling up an old stump, from
which elevated position he aimed carefully, for
what seemed al;out five minutes, at something
almost under his feet. Then followed the click
that denotes a misstire, and a great crashing
amidst the rhododendron bushes, as a bio; brown
bear scuttled away in undignified flight. Some
minutes afterwards, whilst Ivan witli many curses
was descending from the stump, his valuable piece
went ofi', luckily damaging no one.

Except some wild boars seen by Yepheem, this
was the last game we saw during the day, although
we came across regular roads made by bears and
swine, and one patch of several acres, which from
the broken fruit-trees and trampled state of the

HEIMAN'S DATCII.

103

ground appeared to be a regular bear den. The
quantity of fruit one meets with in these Circassian
forests compensates in some measure for perse-
cutions of the ' wolf's tooth ' and other thorny
creepers. Large apples, walnuts, grapes, 'fourmar'
(an edible berry for which I do not know any other
name), medlars, blackberries, dewberries, and a
kind of scarlet plum, occur frequently, and where-
ever they occur the trees are smashed into ruins
by the bears. You begin tij get some notion of
the power of a bear when you have seen the enor-
mous boughs he has broken in his greed for fruit.
To-night the jackals were calling all round us, but
the wily little beasts never gave me a shot.

In the morning Yepheem woke us with the
pleasant intelligence that our horses had been
stolen. A drover had passed along the coast
whilst we were shooting the day before, and
suspicion immediately settled on his party. Of
course after this news there was no hunting for us
to-day, for while Ivan and Yepheem scoured the
country for our missing steeds, I had to sit at home
and watch. At nightfall the best news they could
give me was that the Cossacks on the station at
which we had slept on our way hither had lost six
of their horses at the same time.

I had time during the day to examine the insect
life about our camp, and amongst the butterflies I
noticed all three meadow browns, quantities of very

1 (

ImI''

104

llEnfAN'S BATCH.

large brimstones, a fritillary, and a wood argiis,
whilst amongst the moths I recognized quantities
of the gamma and the humming-bird hawk moth.

When we went down to the shore to bathe,
huge shoals of what looked like bass were playing
close in shore, but alas we had no means of secur-
ing any, though they Avould have been a noble ad-
dition to our ill-found larder.

Jjast night, whilst writing up my journal, with
my legs dangling from a rafter, and a great wood
fire burning by my side, by which the men lay
curled in their bourkas, the wind that came moan-
ing through the open places in the wall brought
with it a sound between a child's wail and a wolfs
howl, which was so distinct from the jackals' cries
that it arrested my attention at once. The men
sprang to their feet simultaneously, and with ex-
cited faces whispered 'I.?rse' (panther). At our
backs was the ruined doorway through which
the forest trees stretched their arms ; in our front
was the huge empty window place with thickets
of briar and thorn half blinding it, and right
under it the sound seemed. For a moment I
believe the same feeling was on all of us, that the
next event would be the entrance of our serenader
by either door or window. However, this wore off
at once, and snatching up my rifle I crept to the
window place to try to make out the beast in the
moonlight. But outside all was a maze of shadowy

11 EI MAN'S PATCH.

lo;

limbs and dark places, with every here and there a
brilliant ])atclnv()rk of moonshine ; and thon«^h I
went outside and carefully beat jJl round ourcamj)
I could not catch sight of the barse.

To-night, having had a lazy day in eam^), I
was by no means in a hurry to roll myself up in the
least draughty corner, so taking my rifle, having
constructed a night sight for it, 1 betook myself to
the beach to await our last night's visitor should he
repeat his visit.

The hills near Ileiman's Datch come down almost
to the high-water line, so that sitting hidden under
some drift-wood I had the forest close at my back,
and a little above me ; so close indeed as to suggest
the possibility of a sudden spring from the bushes
to my hiding place if any beast had the courage to
try it. Before me lay some forty yards at most of
strand, and beyond a perfectly calm and silent sea.
Far up in one of the valleys at my back tAvo
wolves were answering each other, and away to-
wards Duapse I could hear so:ne jackals lighting
over some carrion they had fou' ^ .

But for a long time nothing happened, except
every now and then a rustle in the forest at my
back, that made me start and bring my gun to bear
on its dark fastnesses. I had almost made up my
mind to give up my watch and return to the ruin,
when a figure like the grey ghost of some large
hound was just visible against the sky line. It was

io6

HE! MAN'S DA TCI I,

too dark to sec even tlie bjirreLs of my rifle, but
alniinjif as best 1 could, 1 fired. The fi<(ur(' bounded
forward and trotted lu'iskly along* the coast from
me ; so pitching my rifle low, and well in front, I
iired again. Then the beast vanished. For a
muiute or two I waited, expecting to see it again,
or at least hear it making off, and then, loading my
rifle, I went up to the spot at which 1 had last seen
it. But whatever the beast was, it had vanished,
and feeling that I had wasted a couple of hours
and a couple of cartridges in missing a jackal, 1
went back to my roost in the ruin.

However, on the morning after my night-watch,
when we went down to bathe and collect drift-
wood for our fires, my man Ivan suddenly called
to me to look at something he had found on the
stones. On inspection it proved to be large blood
drops, on the very spot, as near as I could tell, on
which my shadowy visitor of the night before had
stood. Following the blood track alonff the shore,
we momentarily expected to And a dead jackal, as,
from the quantity of blood, the beast must have
been very hard hit. Some two hundred yards
along the shore the trail crossed the mouth of a
little moimtain stream, with a bed of soft clay on
one side of it, and through this the trail went.
Our astonishment may be imagined when along
with the blood marks we found the fresh tracks of
a large panther (or more i)roperly leopard), which

///:/.W.!A"S DATCII.

107

had evidently been tlic lu'iist wounded by mo in
the dark the ni^'ht hel'ore. Of course the search
was now prosecuted with far j^reater ardour, at
least on my part. As for the men, tliey have so
many yarns al)out the much (ireadcd harse, tliat
they were not as keen as they mi;i*ht have been ;
and when the trail turned from the shore and
entered some extremely dense and dark thickets,
tliey came to a stand, and nothing woukl induce
them to enter the forest with me. Unfortunately
the dog Avas of their mind, so that after wandering
1)Iin(lly about for some time, tearing myself to
})ieces, and losing my temper terril)ly, 1 had to
give up my search, with the conviction strong
upon me that a noble and (in this part of the
world) rare ({uarry was lying dead within a stone's
throw of me.

' J)arse ' is the name given by the peasants on
the Black Sea coast, and in fact generally through-
out the Caucasus, to any feline animal larger than
a wild cat ; and this indiscriminate use of the word
occasioned me a good deal of trouble, loo often
when they tell you of barse, the animal they refer
to is only the lynx, of which there are at least
two varieties iji the Caucasus, and which is ex-
tremely numerous on some i)arts of the Black Sea
coast. The natives trap it for its skin, which is one
of the commonest in the furriers' shops of Tiflis
and Ekaterinodar. But that the leopard or ocelot

I I

m nil

ill

■ III;

io8

HEIMAN'S DATCH.

(the snow leopard of India) does occur not uncom-
monly in the Caucasus, even on its western coast,
I was assured by Professor Radde, the courteous
director of the Tiflis Museum, who showed me
great kindness in going over his collections with
me during my stay in that town. And even had I
had no further confirmation than the tracks I have
above alluded to, I should feel convinced that the
beast I wounded was an unmistakable leopard.

Returning from our tracking operations, we
were startled by seeing a strange figure moving
about inside our camp, evidently looking for any-
thing light enough to carry away. Remembering
our horses, we never for a moment doubted but
that this was one of the gentry who had stolen
them, returned possibly for the saddles. Had he
been, he would have had fleet feet to have escaped,
for we went for him like terriers for a rat. But our
anger was turned to rejoicing when we recognised
the face of a friendly Cossack from the next station,
who had brought our horses back with him, and
was lookin": for nothinfi^ more valuable than a
still smouldering ember to light his cigarette by.
Our horses had joined his 'taboon' (herd), which
had been pasturing in a valley somewhere between
our camp and his station, and he had there found
t^^em the night before.

On hearing this good news Ivan and his chum
announced to my disgust their intention of going

H EI MAN'S DATCH.

109

straight back to Duapse, before any further acci-
dents happened, alleging as their reasons that their
wives could not do without them any longer. As
a matter of fact, I presume their own appetite for
sport was satiated, and their appetite for vodka
becoming daily more unendurably keen. As no
words or promises of mine could turn them from
their resolve I gave in to them, merely stipulating
that they should leave me one of their horses to
take me twelve versts further up the coast, to the
hut of a Tscherkess telegraph watcher, who lived by
that irrepressible mountain torrent the Golovinsk.
To this they agreed, and I moreover managed to
persuade the Cossack to accompany me to Golo-
vinsky, as another Cossack station at which he
could rest was not far from the watcher's hut. So
we parted company, my men and 1, and I don't
think I suffered any great loss from their defection.
My reasons for wishing to go to Golovinsky were,
that a report had come down the coast that in the
extensive chestnut, forest round the watcher's hut
bears were more than usually numerous, the man
himself having recently killed two by shooting from
a platform in a tree during the nigiit.

'> '''

i if!

GOLOVINSKY.

cjiAi'TKi: vr

GOLOVINHKY.

Lunch in the forest— ricturosque ridiup— A spill— Telegraph shanty
at Golo-viiisky — Robinson Ciusoe — Native guns — Tracks of game
— Multitudes of plieapanta— Paucity of native hunters — Tscherkesa
mocassins— Experiences of forest life — Killing a bear — Cooking
him — Another bag — A lost chance — -iVnecdotea of 'Michael
Michaelovitch ' — Shooting a boar.

The Cossack and myself, having' seen the two Rus-
sians ronnd the first little promontory, unearthed
a small quantity of whiskey wliicli I had managed
to save from their insatiable thirst, and with this
and a pork kabob made a very fair lunch, and laid
the foundation of a, n'ood understandino- between
US. Tiien we piled up a pyramid of odds and
ends on the back of each little horse, and made the
whole fast with cords. Tlie equestrians' enviable
position was astride the sunnnit of the pyramid of
luggage — a position difficult to retain when gained,
and almost impossible to attain unaided. How-
ever, after many failures the Cossack hoisted me on
to my place, and providing we never went out of
n ^Yalk I felt fairly safe. Kow the Cossack got up
was a miracle, but he did it somehow ; and we
proceeded at a walk through the shingle, that forms

GOLOVINSKY.

\\\

the only possible pathway alon^^ this part of the
shore.

We had not ffone far when it seemed to me
that I was gradually leaning over more and more
towards the sea. I tried to regain an erect posi-
tion, and then I became aware of my situation.
]\Iy girths had got slack, and my saddle, with its
hui^e ])ile of luj;i!:a2:e, of which I was the hi"hest
point, was gradually turning round under my
horse's belly. Seated as I was, I was utterly helj)-
less ; I could not readjust my saddle, and a volun-
tary descent, except head first, was impossible. Sc I
waited the course of events, and in a fev/ moments
lay sprawling on the ground, half buried in pots
and pans, bourkas, and other imi)edimenta.

This was our only misadventure, however,
and about four o'clock we came in sight of the
watcher's hut — a two-roomed wooden shanty,
knocked up in the roughest way possible, standing
on the edge of the shingle, with a big brown bear-
skin stretched over the roof to dry. A more utterly
miserable-looking hut cannot well be conceived ;
but the skin on the thatch consoled me, proclaim-
ing as it did the vicinity of the game I was in
search of.

After much shoutinc; and hammering? at the
board that constituted the hut's one door, a wild
Robinson Crusoe-like fellow came shufHing out.
Tall and well built, but taciturn and clumsy to a

M !■

1,1

<iiiii

Sfilf

I !■■ i

f i:

£i I

112

GOI.OVINSKY.

degree, Stepan was not a favourable specimen of
the benefits of woodland isolation to mankind.
Instead of giving me a kindly Avelcome as, to do
them justice, all ilussian peasants had hitherto
done, he eyed me in the doubtful manner in which
some big dog might eye a too familiar stranger
before snapping at the would-be caressing hand.
His face was shrivelled and yellow with fever, and
a frequent deep cough formed no pleasant accom-
paniment to our cottage life. Gradually his
sullenness gave way to surprise at the presence of
an English gentleman in those evil places, for such
he evidently deemed Golovinsky ; and when I ex-
plained to him that I wished to hire his services
and the use of his hut, as well as to put all game
killed at his disposal, his delight knew no bounds.
His terms were a rouble a week, that is about
half a crown ; but that seemed so unfair to me that
I trebled it, and added to it a promise of ten
roubles additional for the skinning of the first
bear I should kill ; and considering that he gave
me house-room, black bread, and his whole time,
I think 76'. Qd. per week was not an exorbitant
charge.

However, he was delighted, and though rather
startled to find that his whole larder consisted of
some black bread, onions, and pork fat ('salo'),
I consoled myself with the reflection that with the
addition of tea and sugar, which I had brought

GOLOVINSKY.

with me, we should be able to hold out for a week
at least, in which time I should probably have
obtained my coveted bear- skin.

Outside the hut all was beauty. The hut itself
was as nearly as possible the centre of a bay of
fairly high hills, enclosing a couple of hundred
acres or so of plain covered with low shrubs.
Beyond the first chain of hills, which was wooded
to the top, rose another and a higher chain, and
so one after another, in successive semicircles, they
rose range above range, until far away in the
sapphire sky shone the white glory of the snow-
peaks. Out at sea a long line of pelicans lay
tossing on the little waves, like a small fleet riding
at anchor. Within the hut all was squalor and
filth. The place consisted of two rooms, in one
of which was a telegraphic apparatus of the
simplest kind, with a handle like that of a barrel
organ, and a face like the face of a clock with
letters in place of numerals. This was the deity
of the place and Stepan's pride and fear. Neat it
was a camp bedstead, and he^e the list of the
furniture ends. The other room was merely a
shed, in which such cooking as we had to do was
done ; and though the appliances were of the
simplest, we never taxed them overmuch. The
floors throughout were of mud, i\nd several inches
deep in refuse, dating from the time of Stepan's
arrival in his den.

114

GOLOVINSKY.

\m\:

■6 i,i

'il!

Borrowing a spade and cutting down a large
bough for a broom, I soon had a clear floor, and
by dint of hard w^ork had in an hour's time got
a fairly clean place to move about in. Stepan
retired to the shed, and, in spite of my protesta-
tions, took up his abode there. Had it not been
for his cough I should have fallen in with this
arrangement readily enough ; but as it was, I felt
he required the best accommodation the shanty
afforded. However, in the shed he remained, and
for the rest of my stay I had his best room to
myself.

There were, besides Stepan and myself, three
other residents at the 'telegraph station,' as he
loved to call it — to wit, Zizda, Lufra, and Orla,
three large cross-bred dogs, devoured by mange,
with which Stepan hunts the boars that abound in
the thicket at the back of his house, killing on an
average, so he tells me, half a dozen in the year,
in spite of the numbers which inhabit the adjoin-
ing forests, this small bag is not very much to be
wondered at, when the impenetrable nature of the
covert and the almost utter uselessness of Stepan's
gun are taken mto consideration.

Russian peasants have amongst them the most
wonderful fire-arms in the world, which, as a rule,
they buy in the bazaars at from three to five
roubles {i.e. 7s. Gd. to 12.s'. 6d.) each. I have
frequently seen the grebe- shooters along the shore

GOLOVINSKY.

at Kertch using old rifle-barrels worn thin, tied on
to a rough stock, with flint lock, &c., the whole
thing being compounded of the remains of some
venerable weapon in use in the Russian army
in:; mediately after the invention of gunpowder.
St ;pun's was no exception to this rule, and yet
I distinctly remember seeing him put in charges
which I would not have ventured to put into my
high -class breech-loader.

After putting the house in order, Stepan loaded
his valuable weapon with a good charge of powder
and two bullets, the first in its naturally smooth
state, the other chewed into a rough -edged mass.
Thus prepared we sallied forth and reconnoitred
the little plain within the hills. Everywhere the
tracks of bears, boars, wolves, and occasionally roe-
deer presented themselves to our eyes, but of the
animals themselves we saw nothing. Pheasants
rose several times from the bushes at our feet, and
Stepan tells me Golovinsky is a favourite abiding
place of theirs, in consequence of the quan-
tity of ' phaisantchik ' growing here, upon the
yellow berry of which they feed. The pheasants
have no bad taste in berries, for when ripe I
know no berry much pleasanter in flavour than
that of the ' phaisantchik,' in spite of its acidity.
The flavour strongly resembles that of the pine-
apple.

Of course, as pheasants abound here, Stepan

ii6

GOLOVINSKY.

lill

has no fowling-piece, »ind I have left mine behind
at Ekaterinodar. You would imagine that living
as the Cossacks, Stepan and many others, do, in a
state of semi- starvation in the matter of meat from
week to week, with an abundance of game birds
round them, they would become good shots and
keen sportsmen, or at the very least turn trappers,
and so supply themselves with food. And yet it
is not so. Not one Cossack amongst the many I
have met was a sportsman, and this perhaps their
want of sporting rifles and ammunition may account
for ; though, if they were allowed to use them, no
better rifle than the Berdianka, with which they are
supplied, could be desired. But that neither they,
nor the settlers and peasants, should have any idea
of trapping, is most strange. In all the Crimea and
Caucasus I never saw or heard of snare, or pitfall, or
any of the hundred and one devices for killing game
without fire-arms, which other nations use. The
only thing of the kind I ever heard of, w^as told me
by a German settler, who assured me that in some
places they caught pheasants by inserting small
cones of paper, limed inside, into the earth ; in the
bottom of each cone a pea is placed and others
strewn around. The pheasant, after finishing the
peas scattered on the surface of the ground, finds
the pea at the bottom of the cone, and, in trying to
peck it out, hoodwinks himself with the limed paper
cone, and being bb'nded becomes frightened, and re-

GOLOVINSKV.

mains cowering on the ground, an easy prey to the
trapper. But I could never hear of any one amongst
the Tscherkesses, Cossacks, or 'plastoons' (settlers),
who had either done this or heard of its being done ;
and I believe I am right in saying that the Rus-
sians, at least in the Crimea and Caucasus, know
very little of trapping, and indeed of woodcraft
generally.

I had passed the first part of this my first night
at Golovinsky, sleeping as well as I could in my
only too well ventilated quarters ; and rising while
it was still dark, Stepan and I had wiled away the
time in chatting of the snares and traps with which
different nations used to kill their game. As we
chatted he busied himself on a pair of rough sandals
or mocassins he was making for me from the skin
of a wild boar h*^ had killed in the spring. As
soon as they were finished, he steeped them in
water to soften them, and then, first wrapping my
leg round with canvas, he fastened on the sandals,
winding the long laces round and round the canvas
until they fastened just below the knee. Thus I
was booted and gaitered a la mode Clrcassienne in
a very short time ; and as the dawn slowly broke
over the mountains, and the stars grew pale and
died in the grey of morning, we left our hut and
walked hard to warm ourselves in the soft rain that
began with dawn.

On our way to the forest, which began at the

Il8

GOLOVINSKY.

if j;

foot of the first range of liills, we had to ford that
turbulent trout stream, the Golovinsk, and as its
waters come straight down from the higher peaks,
and are fed jdmost entirely by melted snow, right
bitterly cold we found it. Chilled and wet to the
waist, we forced our way through a weary half
hour's work in thorn brake and strangling creeper,
Avliile the gathered rain-drops ran in streams down
our necks and up our sleeves from every bough we
touched.

At last we gained the more open chestnut forest,
and here we found how great a boon the rain really
was to us. The leaves, which the day before had
sounded like small minute-guns under our feet,
firing a warning to every beast in the forest, were
now soft and silent. Arrived among the chestnuts,
Stepan and I separated, he taking a line along the
bnse of the hill, I choosing a parallel line much
Irgher up. To-day the dogs had been tied
up, and our modus operandi was simply to
walk as silently as possible through the forest,
stopping every twelve yards or so to listen, and
trusting at least as much to our ears as to our eyes
to find the game.

For over an hour I stalked noiselessly on, hear-
ing nothing but the rattle of the falling chestnuts,
the patter of the ceaseless rain, and the screaming
of the everlasting jays. Jt is easy to understand
why the Indian, whose whole life is spent more or

GOLOV/NSKV.

119

less in the chase, becomes such a silent, self-con-
tained being. The whole chase is a school for
silence and self-restraint. Should you tread care-
lessly, a twig breaks and your chance is lost ;
should a thorn run right up under your nail from
end to end, you must not complain ; and should the
bitter blows dealt you in the face by the rebound-
ing twigs, or the tearing and strangling of the
thorny creepers, at last extract an exclamation, your
chance is over for the day.

For over an hour I bore all the malice of the
forest fiend silently and uncomplainingly, l^ut at
last, in an evil moment, a long trailing loop of
thorny vine hooked me under the nose, and pulling
up that tender member to an unusual angle, held
it firmly hooked in its painful position. Then I
fear the wrath within me boiled over ; and as I re-
leased my mutilated proboscis, I spoke unadvisedly
with my tongue. Hardly was the imprecation out of
my lips when there was a short sharp snort, and a
black object flashed past me downhill at a hundred
miles an hour. A quick snap-shot failed to stop
him, and so I passed on, reflecting that my little
explosion had cost me probably the only game I
was doomed to see that day.

But this lesson taught me caution, and a short
half-hour afterwards, whilst I was creeping noise-
lessly along a kind of natural cutting, I was sud-
denly aware of a big black thing moving in the

I w

I20

GOLOVINSKY.

■'! !

hazels liigh above me. The creature looked as if
it was browsing, and might have been anjrthing
from a cow to a rhinoceros, for any distinguishing
feature that I could discern. However, in such a
position, I argued, it must be game of some sort,
so, raising my rifle, I aimed as nearly as possible
into the middle of it, and fired. The yells that
followed my shot were proof positive that I had hit
something, and before I had time to turn, an old
boar was coming straight down to me through the
brushwood, ' puffing ' furiously as he came, like
an excited locomotive engine. I had time to notice
that his mode of progression was curious and lop-
sided, lurching as he did on to his hams at every
step, and when he was almost on top of me, rolling
over the cutting in which I stood : only avoiding
me by a few yards, he went crashing downhill,
taking another bullet with him as he went, and
lod<j!:inff under a fallen tree far down the hillside.

Here for a time I left him, making the woods
hideous with his snarlin<!: and moanino* ; and after
some ten minutes' shouting I managed to get my
guide, Stepan, to ome to me, white and shaking
with fright. IJe explained to me that he thought
I had been certainly killed, and in consequence of
this, I suppose, believed I should want his services
no more. Standing in the cutting, I pointed out
to him the place where l^ruin lay, far down through
an almost impenetrable thicket of blackberry-bush

GOLOVJNSk'Y

121

and wild vine. Stepan did all he knew to induce
me to leave the bear to die by inches, and come for
him next day ; but this seemed to me not only
unsportsmanlike, but uncertain : so leaving him to
watch Bruin, I crawled into the thicket, and began
forcing my way by a game-track under the bushes
to the place where he lay.

It was a difficult path, and the creepers ham-
pered me sadly, so that it was not without a con-
siderable quickening of the pulse that I heard
Stepan screaming, ' Look out, Barin (master),
for heaven's sake, here he comes I ' The bushes
parted about ten yards below, and slowly i)ushiMg
his way uphill came the bear, swinging his head
from side to side, throwing the blood and foam
from his jaws, and moaning and sobbing liideously.
As soon as he cauo'ht si":ht of me he <?ave his
jaws a kind of vicious snap, and even managed to
increase his pace to a trot. It was difficult to fire
in my cramped position, but I managed to do it,
and, thanks to his extreme proximity to my rifle's
nuizzle, the ball went right through his head,
passing through a large oak sapling beyond, leav-
ing a hole in it as clean drilled as if it had been
done with a hot iron.

The bear, when Ave came to examine him, was
a very old fellow, quite black, and with a skin in
anything but a good condition. However, being
my first bear, we skinned liiui with great care and

t\ ;';

122

GOLOVINSKY.

much exultation, and brought home his head, tired
but rejoicing.

It was still early when we got back to our hut,
not more than mid-day, in fact ; but the weather
was of the roughest, and our uprising had been an
early one, so that we were not sorry to pass the
rest of the day in cleanmg our bear's skin and pre-
paring his flesh for our evening meal. And fresh -
killed bear's meat takes a considerable time in
preparation, and when the animal happens to be as
old and wiry as the beast killed to-day, not forty
cooks with forty rolling-pins could ever beat his
flesh into a reasonable degree of tenderness.

The Cossacks on the station won't eat bear's
flesh, though they only get meat once a week here ;
and partly for that reason, and partly because with
their single-barrelled rifles they consider the risk
too great, they never molest the bears. So little
in fact do they know of their comparative harm-
lessness, that they gave me quite an ovation when
I came back loaded with spoils to-day, and for the
moment I figured as quite a Nimrod to an ad-
miring audience of eleven semi-savages.

I had heard a great deal in time past about the
excellence of bear's hams, and the delicacy of bear's
paws stewed, but I felt that another of the plea-
sant illusions of my youth had been destroyed
when I encountered to-night the mass of boiled
black whipcord, which, in spite of its unpleasant

GOLOVINSk'V.

flavour, was undoubtedly real bear's ham. As for
tlie paws, Stepan and myself baked them a la mode
in a little subterranean oven ; but on unearthing
them we could find nothing but skin and leather,
with bones and bony sinews, and certainly nothing
to eat. Even our dogs did not seem to make
much of them.

In spite of the poor quality of our food, we
madj, however, the heartiest of suppers, having
been strangers to meat for nearly a week ; and
with a storm raging outside which seemed to
threaten a repetition of the disastrous flood that
swept our cottage away last year, we slept the
sleep of the weary but successful.

The next day, Saturday, was a red-letter day
for me. Rising rather later than usual, we tried
the other side of our bay of mountains, and, in
spite of the noisy wind, with great success. Hardly
had we forced our way through the growth of
briars at the bottom of the hill into the chestnuts
above when Stepan, turning round, beckoned me to
stop, knelt down, and aiming deliberately, fired at
something which the bushes concealed from me.
On going up to him I found that he had fired at a
boar standing end on to him some thirty yards off^,
and, as might be expected, with his extraordinary
weapon, had only succeeded in frightening the
beast.

Angry at the luck whicli had given Stepan

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124

GOLOVINSKV.

such a chance to throw away, I pushed noisily

through the thickets, never dreaming of finding

any more game, at any rate for another half mile.

Yet hardly had we gone three dozen paces from

the spot whence the last shot was fired, when our

ears caught the sound of a bear's even step close

to us, and approaching still closer. Slipping silently

behind a couple of trees, we waited with our hearts

in our mouths. Softly and deliberately the steps

drew near, with a sound closely resembling the

step of a man slowly picking his way through the

forest. Every now and then the bear paused to

give a loud snufF of inquiry, which, luckil)/ ^"V -,

the constant shifting of the wind in these mtrr<»w

valleys completely bafiled. At last I got a glimpse

of her passing slowly through the bushes, and

stopping every now and then to pick up the fallen

chestnuts in a leisurely way as she paced along.

I waited for a minute or two until I could see her

grey shoulder plainly through the rhododendrons.

Then I pulled, and wheeling round with a short

sharp cry, she disappeared in the higher covert,

followed in her retreat by a snap-shot from my

second barrel, which evidently did not take eff^ect.

Uncertain whether the bear was killed outright
or only wounded, Stcpan and myself were some-
what shy of following her into her stronghold.
At first \ve both tried climbing trees, hoping to
get a view of her thus ; but finding that of no avail

GOLOVINSKY.

125

I persuaded Stepan to follow me at a distance in a
careful survey of the place in which we had last
seen her. Poor beast, she had not gone far ; the
moment she was out of our sight her strength
failed her, and when we found her she was lying
stone dead, not sixty yards from the spot where the
bullet had reached her.

' Express ' rifles are terribly destructive little
weapons. This second bear was totally unlike
the one killed the day before, at least in colour :
for while he was black, her coat, a very fine one,
was of a soft light brown, so light as to be almost
grey.

On examination we found that she was a year-
ling, and was returning from her morn'ng's work,
the ruin of half a fine chestnut-tree, when we met
her. Some of the boughs she had managed to
break were almost as thick as u man's waist. On
looking at her fore- arm after Stepan had skinned
her, I could not but reflect that the stories one
meets with from time to time, of hand-to-hand con-
flicts with bears, require a large grain of salt for the
swallowing.

Leaving Stepan to finish the skinning, I wan-
dered on somewhat higher up the hillside. I had
not left him a quarter* of an hour when I again
heard the peculiarly ioft regular tread of a bear

above me, and after
minutes, I caught a

waiting patiently for about five
limpse

lii

for a moment of the

126

GOLOVINSKY.

iiead of an exact counterpart of the bear then iinder
Stepan's hands. Unhiekily for me, she sighted me
at the same moment, and with a loud sniff plunged
straight downlilll at a pace that, even had the
covert not concealed her, would have rendered my
chance of hitting her extremely problematical. I
saw from the direction she had taken that she
would pass almost over Stepan, and I hurried on
to be able to lend him a hand in case he only
wounded her. But I waited in vain for the report
of iriv man's mighty blunderbuss. Sitdng engaged
in til aguinary task of disrobing our dead bear
he had suddenly become aware of what appeared
to him either the shade or the enraged sister of the
deceased charging furiously down upon him ; and
oppressed with a consciousness of his guilt, Stepan
fled red-handed from the avenger, leaving his gun
to take care of itself.

Poor Stepan, who was originally I believe no
coward, but in days past, according to his own ver-
sion, a mighty hunter, was an instance of a man
who had suddenly lost all his nerve, and this
occurred as follows. One day, when suffering
severely from fever, he was walking along the dried
bed of a mountain torrent, when, on turning a
sharp comer, he almost ran into a large bear. For
a moment they stood facing one another. Stepan,
having no weapons, thought his last hour had
come. There was an awful noise, something struck

GOLOVINSKY.

127

liiiii on the face, and for the time the hapless Tscher-
kess passed away from this bear-harmted world to
a land of oblivion. On returning to his senses, he
was surprised to find no bear, and no bloody
wound upon his scalp. Further examination
showed him, however, that a bear had stood facing
him, and it was probably the gravel thrown up by
its hind feet as it slewed round in headlong flight,
that had struck Stepan, not stunning him as he
supposed, but merely in his weak state frightening
him out of his senses. Since then until now my
man had only shot at bears from a platform in
a tree at night— a style of sport extremely free
from danger, as, although Bruin can climb, he
very rarely if ever attempts to do so in pursuit
of a foe.

Living, as Stepan had lived all his life, in
bear-frequented forest lands, he had many a story
to tell of ' Michael Michaelovitch,' as the peasants
call him. On one occasion he and a friend had
observed an apple-tree well laden with fruit, some
seven or eight versts from their village in the forest,
standing unclaimed of any man, almost sole relic
of some once prosperous Tscherkess village. Stepan
and his friend, who lived at some little distance,
arranged to meet at the tree one morning early,
and gather the fruit, to be shared amongst them.
Arrived at the tree, Stepan saw some one already
engaged throwing the apples down. Thinking his

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128

GOLOVINSKY.

friend was trying to steal a march on him, the
irate Stepan lieaped all manner of abuse on him,
accused him of spoiling the apples by throwing
them down ; and, at last, getting no answer, fairly
yelled with rage, and began to throw things into
the tree. Then the shower of apples ceased, and,
with a gruff snort, a huge old bear came tumbling
out of the tree, almost on top of the terrified
villager. As usual in these cases. Bruin was just
as much frightened as the man, and shambled off
as quickly as possible, leaving the apples to the
friends.

All the Russians and Tscherkesses with whom
I have talked about bears, say there are two kinds
in the Caucasus — the ordinary big brown bear, and
a smaller one, that lives in the higher ranges, has
a kind of white shirt-front to his coat, and is
much fiercer and more carnivorous than his brown
brother. Dr. Radde, however, of the Tiflis Museum,
tells me there is only one kind ; and though I have
myself seen great variety in the sizes and coats of
different individuals killed on the Black Sea coast,
I can well believe he is right. Still, I fancy the
higher ranges of Transcaucasia are very little
known ; and it may well be that a variety of the
common bear, differing considerably from the speci-
mens found on the coast, is to be met with nearer
the snow-line. The peasants tell wonderfully cir-
cumstantial stories of their favourite's craft (for,

GOLOVINSKY.

129

in a way, the bear is a "Teat favourite with the
moujik, and hero of many a droll story): how that
he lies in ambush for the unsuspoctiufi^ roe or wild
goat, and pounces on him, or knocks him down
Avith a log used cb'b-fashion, as he passes. Or,
again, that lying hid on a ledge overlooking some
favourite pass of the tur's, he rolls huge stones on
his prey as it browses beneath him, and then,
having killed it in this way, climbs down and
dines at his leisure.

Of course all these are mere peasants' stories,
but as they have been told me repeatedly by
peasants who have lived amongst the beasts of
which the stories are told all their lives, I give
them for what they are worth. There may be
some grains of truth in them.

After putting my bear's skin out of harm's
way, and leaving the hams to take their chance
till we returned, Stepan and I continued our hunt.
In a deep glade, where no sunlight came to disturb
the drowsy stillness, something bounded to its feet
with a great noise, and hurried off unseen, making
the whole forest re-echo with its short sharp barks.
The cry was new to me, and I imagined all manner
of grim beasts from whom the sound might have
proceeded, and regretted intensely my evil luck in
not obtaining a shot. Stepan, however, consoled
me by telling me it was only ' cazeole,' the roebuck
of this part of the world, which answers — so an

130

GOLOVINSKY.

i! ::' \

old Indian sportsman tells me who has shot many of
these ' cazcoles,' — to the Indian ' karkee.' Indeed, all
the game found in the Caucasus is the same as, or
very nearly allied to, species found throughout the
mountains of India.

Later on in the day, whilst exploring a rhodo-
dendron thicket at the very summit of a high hill,
shut in and encircled hy still higher eminences, I
heard somethinn; bolt from me throuijfh the rattliuij;
covert, and then pause, and with a loud sniff try to
get my wind. Apparently getting it the beast
changed his course and proceeded at right angles
to the line of his first rush, and then halting,
again tried for my wind. Luckily for me, shut in
as we. were by the higher peaks, the wind kept
veering round ; and, thoroughly puzzled and beaten,
the unlucky beast kept changing his course until
at last I, standing behind a tree, saw a long grey
snout and a pair of gleaming white tusks peering
out of a thicket some thirty yards in front of mc.
The quick eyes sighted me at once in spite of my
tree, and I had hardly time to fire before the owner
of the eyes had retreated out of sight. Quick as
the shot had to be, however, it was wonderfully
effective, and the boar went crashing head over
heels from top to bottom of the hill, there to rest
still as sudden death could make it until I could get
down to him. The bullet had gone in at the front of
the shoulder, and traversing the whole length of the

GOLOVINSk'Y.

131

s pine, bad perlbctly pulverised it, remaining buried
just under tbe bide near tbe root of tbe tail ;
wbence I extracted it and still preserve it, smasbed
and flattened as it is, a memento of tbe wonderful
force of tbe 'express' (450) rifle.

Laden witb spoils, tbe bear's skin and bead, as
well as tbe tidbits taken from tbe boar, we burried
bome, to send up tbe Cossacks for tbe rest of tbe
boar, wbicb would be a welcome addition to tbeir
perpetual cabbage soup.

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DENSE COVERTS.

CHAPTER VII.

DENSE COVEHTS.

Unsuccossful sporl -Bruin and Stopan — Black broad and onions —
Forest music — Mosquitoes — Ticks and other insects — Bruin's
fondness for honey — Butterflies — Our larder — Narrow escape of
Stepan — Unlucky days — Watchinj^ for swine — Otters — A cold
vipil — An exasperatin}^ march.

To rocoimt day by day our adventures whilst
hunting at Golovinsky wonld certainly be weari-
Home to the general reader ; and even the keenest
sportsman has enough blank days of his own with-
out reading the record of other people's. In spite
of the fair beofinninc^ I had made, in the first two
days of my stjiy, sport was not always as good or
gjime so plentiful. Day after day, from dawn to
dusk, often dragging our weary limbs home through
icy torrents, by the feeble rays of a young moon,
without whose light we had already been some time
wandering in the forest darkness, we toiled unceas-
ingly without getting another bear, although their
tracks abounded everywhere.

Boars were at first fairly plentiful, .ind with
them we did pretty well, though with them as with
the few bears we did see, Stepan almost invariably

DENSE COVER IS.

•33

got llu; shot and invariably missed it. Once lie
did liit an old she-bear, and a rare moss be very
nearly made of it. T had j^ot sick of seeing;' nothinj^',
and was standhi^- on an old log under which a bear
had at one time made his lair, gazing idly down a
long vista of forest below me. As I gazed I saw
a small animal, which at the distance I could not
recoirnise, beiu"' rolled over and over in the dead
leaves by what was unmistakably a bear. 1 was
on the point of descending to stalk her, when a
report rang out below, and the old bear rolled over
beside her cub. In another moment she was on
her feet again, and using her fore-paw to urge him
along, she was rapidly driving her cub towards me
and away from the spot whence the report had
come. As I watched, too much engrossed to
think of firing, I saw her leave the cub and go
at a really good gallop for something between her
and myself. For a moment 1 thought J was the
object of her attack ; but a view of Stet)an, his
wretched old lire-arm as usual abandoned, bolting-
like a rabbit, revealed at once the true state of the
case, and I made all haste to his rescue. Seeing me
coming and Stepan stopping as 1 approjiched, the
old she-bear turned, mucli to my surprise and in-
finitely to my disgust. Blown ^vitii my sharp rush
and unduly excited, I missed the old lady entirely,
or only hit her b'^hind as she dived downhill
throufjli the high covert. Though we heard her

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'34

DENSF. COVERTS.

I '^.i

once or twice, tminpin*^ about in the bushes and
aTowliiiii* over her wounds, and thou<»']i I am con-
vinced she and the cub were within a few hundred
yards of us whilst we munched the bhick bread and
onions that made our lunch, we never saw either
of them again.

Black bread and an onion sounds but a poor
kind of refreshment after a hard morning's work,
yet what real enjoyment that half-hour at lunch
used to be to us, only those who really love forest
life and nature at home can tell. All the mysterious
rustlings of the forest, every breaking twig, sug-
gested a whole volume of possible adventure to us.
Coming but six weeks before from the stifling
atmosphere of London, every breath of fresh air
seemed full of fresh life, every forest sou replete
with nmsic. The chirping of the green fro^o — those
mysterious little saurian^ whose bird-like note is
so pitched as rather to lead you from than to their
hiding-place ; the harsh shrill note of the handsome
black woodpecker, whose crimson crest is the more
distinctly beautiful as it is his only adornment ;
the continual chattering of the traitor jays, who
seem always bent on proclaiming the hunter's
presence ; even the sharp rattle of the chestnuts,
falling over- ripe from the trees ; the droning of the
bees, and the tiny but insatiable mosquito, combine,
though in themselves not all harmonious, with the
murmur of the sea and the whisper of the breeze.

DF.A'SE COVERTS.

135

to make a woodland concert, wliicli to some cars
no otlicr mnsic, cither of the present or of llerr
AVaiiiicr's futnre, could ever hope to rival.

'I'hose nios(piitoes were tlu; (»nly hitter drop in
our mid-day drauuht of la/y pleasure. That they
were bona fule mos(iuitoes I do not ])retend, thou^-h
we called them so, and hated them as nuich as if
they had been, because, though mere microscopic
midj^cs, the lumps they raised u])on us were
worthy of the efforts of a Goliath amon<i^ mosqui-
toes. From e\'ery rotten trce-stum}) rose a ])erl'ect
steam of these evil httle beasts, and bein<»' so
small they could and did get through everything,
and elude all vigilance.

There was anotlur insect pest which used to
cause us considerable annoyance : a kind of tick
wliicli dropped upon us imawares as we brushed
against a bough, and creeping in under erne's clothing
buried its head unfelt in the skin, and there took up
its abode. If not found and dislodged at night,
the body of the creature would grow to such an
extent that in the morning it had the ai)pcarance of
a large wart growing upon you, and if left longer
would swell to almost any size, taking root by its
head and requiring infinite care in removing ; for of
such a bull -dog nature is the insect that it will
allow its body to be torn from its head rather than
let go its hold. If this happens the result is a bad
wound, hard to heal and ai)t to fester. There are

li 11

136

DENSE COVERTS.

other insects in these woods, though of a less ob-
noxious nature ; and from one chiss to-day we
received a most welcome addition to our larder.

My man spent a good deal of his time in hunt-
ing for honey, and was wonderfully sharp-sighted
when bees were concerned, noticing them at once
across a valley, o})serving the line of their flight, and
eventually tracking them to tlieir secret hoard with
a certainty that seemed almost like the result of
instinct. These Tscherkesses have a way of making
a roagli sort of hive for the wild l)ees in trees to
wliicli the bees arc partial, and I believe respect
each other's hives wl en thev come across them,
l^ruin, however, has less conscience than the
Tschcrkess, and if there is one thing which will
temjDt him into an indiscretion sooner than another
it is honey. This man told me that once in a tree,
with liis nose smeared with honey, and stung all
over by the indignant bees, the ]jear will go on
feeding greedily, though the whole time he keeps
crying and bemoaning hiuiself for the pain given
liim by his tiny foes. At such tiuies, so hitent is
he on his feast, that tlie liunter may ai)proacli him as
closely as he pleases, and shoot him at his leisure.

The peacock butterfly was another insect of
which I noticed large numbers from time to time
round the outskirts of the forest ; and indeed, in the
whole of autumn in the Caucasus, 1 never noticed
any butterliies, or only very few, which were not

DENSE COVERTS.

137

familiar to me as British insects, while I saw speci-
mens of almost every butterfly which occurs with
us at home. Tlic most numerous, I think, was the
clouded yellow, and its paler variety ' hyale.'

The day we got our honey was a red-letter day
for us, for on that occasion our larder reached its
maximum of plenty ; the boat, with stores from
Duapse, turning up on the afternoon of the same
day. A bear's ham, some pork, black bread, honey,
onions, and a bottle of abomination, labelled ' Vieux
Rhum, Marseilles,' which I doubt not had never
been much nearer France than the Crimea, made
my servant's face beam with delight at the sight of
such unwonted plenty ; but alas ! from this day
our evil times were to commence ; and so bare did
our larder at last become that tne very flies that
then swarmed gave us up as inhospitable paupers
before the end of a fortnight.

On trying the part of the forest in which I had
killed my first bear on Monday, we could find no
fresh traces of game, although the place was quite
a warren of old boar runs, and full of beaten roads
made by the bears. The cause of the game's
absence was evidently the presence of the carcass of
my first bear, which, mangled by jackals, was
already tainting the ai ' far and wide. Some large
game I did almost bag, but that was nearly being
a very serious matter for one of us.

As usual, we took parallel lines along the hill-

ill*

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138

DENSE COVERTS.

\\ '

,1 '

i f >i

side, and tlioiigh from time to time a broken twig

betrayed the presence of the one to the other,

Stepan and I were otherwise lost to each other. For

ov(T half- an -hour we had been stalking in this way,

without any event occurring to wake the stillness

of the wood, when from a point above me, and

coming down wind towards me, I heard a sound

like that of approachmg game. Slowly it came on,

and as the leaves were crushed softly under its

heavy even tread, which stopped from time to time

that the beast might listen or pick up a chestnut, I

recognised the step as that of Bruin strolling slowly

home after his early breakfast. Stoo})ing to get a

better view through the hazel stems, I saw them

swing and shake some eighty yards above me, and

caught a glimpse at the same moment of something

lighter in colour than the covert passing througli

it. Instinctively my rifle covered it, and from that

moment, for quite three minutes I sliould think, I

followed the bear's every movement Avith my rifle's

inuzzle. Twice I half pressed the trigger as a

larger piece of the creature's grey side was visible

to me, picking his way slowly past me ; but just as

I was on the point of firing he turned and came

downhill towards rne. Thanking my stars that I

had not fired a random shot into the brown of my

game, I waited for him to come closer. There was

twenty yards from me a little o})cn space, and here,

if he entered it, as he seemed likely to, I meant to

DENSE COVERTS.

139

kill him. Jealously iny rifle followed his every
moveuieut, dreading' a change of direction, and in
another moment the shot would have been fired.
The grey thing suddenly rose on end, or seemed to ;
and parting the thorn vine with its fore-arms walked
into the open my man Stepan !

For a moment I felt absolutely sick, and 1
don't think I was ever more unhinged in my life
than I was for the rest of the day ; and when,
later on in the heat of noonday, I was resting in
a ravine by a small pool, half dozing after lunch,
hearing the same pace just above me, and seeing
a great patch of grey move through the bushes,
I lost a veritable bear by not firing. So Stepan s
folly nearly cost him his life, and cost me a bear.
He had, it seemed, gone on too fast to the end of
his beat, and getting tired of waiting for me,
thought he might as well come back to meet me.
Heard on the dead leaves, a bear's step as he
moves slowly aloni: ^t0})|)iiig from time to time
to feed or listen, is Aoiulerfully like tlmt <ji a
mocassined hunter stalking ,-iuwly over the same
ground.

And now, day after day, the sport gre\v \ orse.
Stepan was evidently but a very \mov guide.
Living, as he had done, for a couple of lonely years
in his hut at Golovinsky, his spirit of ( terprise
had never led him to explore more than the two
beats in which we liad already been successful.

T"r!

140

DENSE COVERTS.

I ;■

I 'Z

I ;:

si:;^

I ill

lioyoiid tlu's(^ two tracts of forc^st lie knew 110-
tliiiio*, und in tliis dense eovert it is almost nseless
to attein])t to shoot nntil you liave first ex])loi\;.l
a little. If you do atteinj)t it, you find yourself,
sooner or later, lost in a dense mass of thorns, in
which you cannot move without noise — in which,
in fact, you can scarcely move at all. From ahove
haiiij^ thick curtains of the ahominahle creeper
wiiich the i)eoi)le call aptly enoui|li ' wolf's tooth,'
Avliich is so keen and strong; that evi^n my stout
jacket of moleskin was torn by it ; whik^ Stepan's
clothes, th()u<>'li made of the toughest canvas, ceased
to exist, in spite of all his ini!;eiiious ])aichin«»s, by
the end of the fortnight. A few boars and two more
bears were all we could i>'ef ; and at last 1 con-
sented to a trial of Ste[)an's vaunted pack. lUit
not nntil wt' had tried every other method dM
I consent to havini»' the forests disturbed in this
way.

One day, after twelve hours' spent in the usual
stalking", Stepan and I perched ourselves like un-
ii;ainly birds each in a tree above a hole full of nuid
and water, in wdiich herds of swine wallowed nightly.
15ut our limbs t;iv\v craujped, and the moon rose
hig'her in the heaven^, iuakini>' (piaint ])atterns on
the dark hole below, witliout oiu* ever being dis-
turbed in our nii>ht-watch. As the moon <>rew
more dim, we climbed down ai^ain with achinii'
limbs ; and as Stepan relieved his feelings by a

DENSE COVERTS.

'4'

liojirsc ('oujj;;li loiif^ pent up, a siuldcn clinrfijo
tliroiif^li tlio tliickctH closc! by, with indij^riMnt
snortinji^s, told us tlmt tlu' liord wns just apjmKidi-

iiiir «'iw wo l((f't.

On our way back, as wo orossod n small tribu-
tary of tlio rjolovirisk, a bio^ silvery tliin*^ slid ofF a
stone into tbo watcjr, and swam aloni^ tlu; bottoiri
of the shallow stream close by me. In the j^rey
mornin;]^ light it looked to my drowsy eyes like a
large fish, .and it was not until I heard Stepan's
wretched old gun miss fire that I recognised in it
a very fine otter ; then, of course, it dived into
deeper water, and was lost to us. Many of these,
as well as a f(!W sea-otters, are found between
Novorossisk and Sukhoinn, and my man showed,
me the skins of several which he had killed ; out
though T frequently saw their spoor, this was the
only live specimen it was ever my hu^k to see.

vVnother Ion**; niii:ht we sat down under a
juniper bush on the shingle that has, at some time
or other, formed the bed of a broader Golovinsk, or
has been })rought down by the stream during its
winter floods On the opposite bank rose the hill
forest, coming down in thorny thick(!ts to the
Avatcr s edge. Half a mile behind us, on our side
the stream, the other forest began, and a quarter
of a mile below us the sea kept moaning. On all
the little patches of sand the tracks of game were
numerous and recent, and we had good hopes of

,4;t

It- ■ 1

H-

I.J2

nr.Nsr: coy/CA'/x

t': f-

Sport: i'ikIocmI wc ikumIimI [Ikmii Io k(>('j) iis np llir(>iii;Ii
tl)Mt cold iiiulit. On tlic fiir side of the river tlicrc
wns M l.'irLiO Ir.'K'l ol' sjiiid jind clny, wliicli avjis
om» clost^-wril ten nu-ord ofllic lioinu's and roininii's
ol' lliii'stv Ix'.'isfs. Vet nil I lint wc.'iry uii;ht \\v
siuv Imrdly nnylliiiin*. Al six we iniircln ' down
to those icy wnlcrs of Irihulntion jis men ])r('|)!n'('d
to do or die — tluit is, to ho niiscrnblt^ ns conif'ort-
nhly.Ms possil>l(». Pitchinii; ourselves and Jt flask of
Marseilles ' rluiin ' into the husli. we arraniicd
that Stepan should watch until niidni_i»;ht, and tlu^
niornino" wateli shouhl he mine. AVith a stone for
a pillow, and my kne(»s tucked u]> to my chin,
I soon slept to tlu^ tune of the stream at my feet,
to wake in ahout an honr's time shiverint»- and wet
throuiih with the mist. The sound of a well-
known snore explained to me how rii»id liad heen
Stepan's vii>il ; aiul as two or three dusky lorms
holted hack into the thicket on the far side as I
rose nnwarilv to kick him, I hitterlv reuiTetted
that I had not kept watch all nitiht through.

Ixesolvinn" not to disturh my trusty lionchman,
1 settU^d myself in the warnu^st corner I could
iind, and prepared to keep watch till mornini>-.
And r did so through all that livelont*' nio'lit, nntil
the Pleiads had worked riirht round into the
west : a little querulous wind arose, the stars i:;rew
iireyer and greyer, there came a sudden bitter
chill into the air, to which all the cold of the night

\'i

/)/:ns/-: covf.rts.

i.fj

liiid Ih'cm iiH iiofliin*:;, jiimI llicn we knew it was
uioniinu".

A violent sliiikc roiiscrl SlcpiM), jmm! witlioiil
troiiMini;' ourselves Jihoiit more ln'cjikfiist tliiiii w
cnist of Miiek l)reM(l iiiid tlie flask afVorfled, we
went into tlie forest. Here we liad a f)Iank <lay;
tlioni;]j liud Stepan eliosen to (ire, he liad a splendid
chance at two hears; hnt as I was at some distance,
lie held his hand, ap[)arently from prudential
niofives.

When we came hr.ek late that (sveninLi;, empty-
handed, to conchid(; ( ur twenty-four hours of toil
with a man^h of* a n»il(* over the hed of the Golo-
vinsk — feelin<»: its houldcis throuii'li our worn
mocassins as phiiidy as if w(! were })arefooted ; the
small stones l)urnin<j:; into our sore feet like hot
irons, while from the l)ii( ones wc slipped, risking;
s[)rains and l)reakai!;(!S every other step, and u^cittinu;
clear of tlu* ston(^s oidy to j)luni(e into the icy
stream — wluniwe were enduriu'^ all this, I miii;ht, 1
think, 1)(! fori^ivcn if I said ' Anu^ii ' to \\\i\ Russian
proverl) which my wretched ij^uide kept repeatin^j^,
U, the effect that ' tlu; chas(! is worse- than slavery.'
Jt does not say much f )r the sportini^ spirit of the
liussians that such should he a favourite proverb
junong them ; hut in Stepan's case, where Ik; had
all his share of the toil and none of the enthu-
siasm which novelty lent me to keep Inm uj), it
was a pardonable sentiment. Poor fellow, it was

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144

DENSE COVERTS.

quite tragic to see him, having crossed his enemy
the Golovinsk for tlie last time that night, sit
down hcside its waters, and, casting the remnants
of a pair of mocassins into the stream, walk home
barefoot.

HUNTING WITH DOGS,

CHAPTER VIII.

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

llelitLing — Our moiigrela — Shipping our spoils — Visitors — Stepan's
yarns — The hedgehog — Legend of the bracken — The Euxine in a
fury — Trebogging — Traces of Tscherkess -villages — Enormous
boars— Their feeding grounds — Lose a bear — Impenetrable
thickets liiding the proximity of big game — A rare day's sport
— Shooting in the moonlight — Au expedition — Fever — Precau-
tions against it — Unsuccessful sport and hard fare.

After our twenty-four hours of unsuccessful
labour recorded in my last chapter, we were too
tired and too tattered to take the field again next
day. So we spent it in drying our clothes, mend-
ing and washing them, constructing fresh mo-
cassins from the hide of one of our boars, and
generally preparing for a campaign of another
kind against our enemies the bears and boars.

In this campaign we were to be assisted by a
canine force, consisting of three mangy curs
belonging to Stepan, and one utterly useless beast,
the property of the neighbouring Cossack station.
Stepan's trio were, in their way, the three ugliest
half-starved mongrels that ever were possessed
with the pluck of a gamecock and the unreason-
ing devotion that never shows itself in anything

146

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

> •»

but a dog. Why they should have been Stepan's
faithful slaves no human reasoning could explain.
They could have picked up more by themselves
than he could give them. Poor fellow, he never
had any great abundance for himself. They had
to sleep outside the shanty, Avere kicked if they put
their noses inside, and were devoured by the mange,
which their master never seemed to think of
curing. As for breed they had none, or perhaps
I should say they had a touch of every breed in
them. Zizda was said to be in some way con-
nected with a race which they called ' harlequin ; '
and if oddity of shape, oddness of eyes, and a
general unevenness of colour and outline, entitle
a dog to the name, old Zizda was a veritable
harlequin. He was a large dog with huge paws,
a very square head, wall eyes, a capital nose, and
indomitable pluck, which had from time to time
earned him the innumerable scars with which he
was marked from tail to muzzle. The other two
were utter mongrels, but staunch supporters of old
Zizda in any emergency. They were an old bitch
called Lufra, and a young dog, Orla, or ' The
Eagle.' I cannot refrain from giving the dogs'
names, because they were such real heroes in the
chase, and good servants to me.

The first duty of our day of rest, then, was to
feed our pack — a duty often forgotten, and appre-
ciated by the dogs now as an unprecedented

nuNrnxG with dogs.

•47

attention from us. This done, we busied our-
selves in getting the skins of the game we had
killed ready to send away, as a boat had been
seen passmg a day or two before, and having been
signalled to, had promised, if possible, to call on
its way back from Sotcha. It called to-day, took
our skins on to Kertch, and left us a good supply
of tobacco, the want of which we had hitherto
keenly felt.

Another visitor turned up to-day to our utter
surprise (for visitors are rare at Golovinsky) — die
head gardener from the Grand Duke Michael's
forest of Ardenne, who had been out hunting for
two days and taken nothing. With him was a
Greek from a colony somewhere near, who com-
plained bitterly that though he and his fellow
colonists had spent most of their ni^<:lits about
harvest- time on platforms or trees, to shoot at and
scare the bears and boars, these gentry had com-
pletely destroyed the crop of ' koukourooz ' (maize),
on which the Greek villagers greatly depend.
When I found that in spite of the number of
guns in the trees, not one bear or boar had been
killed, I was not so much surprised at Bruin
coming to look upon the noise as merely a military
salute intended in his honour, which in no way
interfered with his ai)petite.

From time to time during the day I managed
to extract a little information from the taciturn

1 I

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II !!

t ,'

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148

HUNTING WITH DOGS,

Stepan, but his lonely life has made him so
reserved as to he almost inaccessible to the wiles
of the inquirer. He is a Tscherkess who has
abjured Mahomctanism without apparently adopt-
ing any other faith ; so of his religion he had
little to tell. About liis village and the life in it
he said little more, and of the Tscherkess wars
he absolutely refused to speak — though on that
topic he evidently had more to say — from what
seemed to me a fear lest any words of his being
repeated might get him into trouble. So we fell
back upon natural history, and on this topic he
was fairly fluent.

Amongst other things he told me of some
quaint habits of the hedgehog — for I presume it
was the hedgehog and not the porcupine he meant ;
fur the word he used for the beast was one which
I did not know, being Tscherkess patois of some
kind. But from his description the animal was
either one or the other ; and as the porcupine is
only supposed, I think, to inhabit the Persian
border of the Caucasus, the animal of Stepan's
story was probably a hedgehog. He described a
hedgehog perfectly, and then added that there were
two kinds in the Caucasus, one with head and feet
like a ^^ig, the other with head and feet like a
hound. It was one of the latter which he noticed
one day under an apple-tree in the forest, collecting
and carrying off the fallen fruit by rolling over it

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

149

(so ho dpscribed it) until she hnd impaled an a[)|)le
on one of her spiiieH. She then impaled another
on the other side of her body, and thus laden,
retired for some time, to return without her load,
for two more apples. This sounds very unlikely
to me, hut as the fellow had no object in inventinj^ '
the story, and invariably told me the truth as far
as I could discover, T give it, as well as other yarns
from the same source, for what it is worth. Of the
same beast the Ccssacks and Stepan assert that he
kills snakes by seizing their tails in his jaws and
then rolling on them, turning a somersault over
them, in fact, so as to drive the spines into them.

I heard too, to-day, a quaint superstition about
the common bracken, which abounds here, and on
the roots of which the swine feed when there are
no chestnuts or berries to be had. The Circassians
say there is one moment in one night of the year
(alas, my authority had forgotten which night),
at the very stroke of midnight, when this plant
blooms. The flower lasts but a few moments, in
the which if any one has the good fortune to gather
and preserve it, he obtains omniscience thenceforth.
Talking of such thing's as the forcffoino- and making
fresh mocassins for the morrow, the day soon passed,
and we rolled ourselves up in our rugs and were
happy, though we went to bed almost dinnerless.

The sea rose to-night, and raged as the Black
Sea sometimes does, in so wild a way that one

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ISO

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

almost forgets its habitual calm in these short
bursts of Berserker fury. So close did the white
waves come to our fragile hut, that we began to
tremble lest the sea should wash through the ground
floor (our only floor), as it had done once last
winter ; and in the middle of the night old Zizda,
pressing close to the wall outside for comfort from
the keen wind and driven spray, pushed his way
right through the lath and plaster, and appeared
wet and unceremonious by my bedside. Whether
he found it much warmer inside than out I very
much doubt. It must have been very bitter outside
if he did. But by morning, though the waves
were still white below, a bright sun was shining,
and tlie rain-drops had been dried off the grass.

We gave the sun another hour or two to
complete his good work, and then, at about nine,
started for the forest with our pack.

The method of procedure was simplicity itself.
Once in the forest each doa: went whithersoever he
pleased, and the whole team, cruising about at
random, at last hit on the ti'ick of something and
gave tongue. Then, with our ears only to lead us,
we made to what seemed the likeliest spot to inter-
cept the dogs and their quarry, and right good fun
it was, though rough work in the extieme. Bad
as are the briars nnd tangled masses of vine, I

Lvines and hillsides, covered

think the frequent ravmes anc

with their fine shcrt grass, are infinitely worse.

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

\%\

Rushing pell-mell to the scene of action, you expect
to have face and hands lacerated as you go nnd
take it with equanimity, ..ontent if only you can
force a way at all. But having forced a way, it is
annopng to have your feet slip upon those dry
hillsides, and, perfectly helpless, feel yourself and
rifle rapidly gliding downhill away from the point
towards which, at so much personal inconvenience,
you have been struggling. It was better fun to
see Stepan, as he strove to descend a ravine, slide
helplessly down, sixty miles an hour, to a pool at
the bottom, into which he unceremoniously plopped,
pursued at once by Zizda, who followed his master
on his haunches, looking the picture of imbecile
mi&ery. But for bipeds and even ordhiary quad-
rupeds there is some excuse, seeing that Bruin
himself often comes to grief in these places. Wit-
ness the numerous slides on these banks, looking
as if Bruin had been diverting himself and his
family by the innocent amusement of trebogging.

Throughout the forest where we were hunting
to-day, we found every here and there the traces
of Tscherkess villages, whose occupants have fled,
some long ago in the old war time, and some only
last spring, to join the Turks in their war against
Russia. Even in the case of these latter no sign
of a house remained, only a i)iece of ground more
level than that wliicli surrounded it, overgrown with
a dense jungle of briar ; here and there a piece of

152

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

hand-\vrouf]^lit wood, a relic of some Circassian house
furniture, and fruit-trees that were merged into the
forest when their owners joined the Turks. These
old ' aouls ' are very strongholds of Bruin, and his
work is visible on all sides. Little pathways, l)eaten
smooth through the briary places, torn -down
branches of the walnut and ap})le, and bees' nests
dug out where none but he could have got at them,
all attest his presence.

It was from one of these old ' aouls ' that our
dogs first got anything to make a really good stand.
The ' aoul ' had been on the very summit of one of
the chain of hills on which we were shooting. The
site of it was covered with acres of dense briars,
from the midst of which towered what had pro-
bably been the village pride, a patriarchal chestnut
of enormous size. Here Zizda gave out his deep
bass warning that game was afoot, and the other
three curs made a chorus of it. I was down below
in a belt of chestnuts outside the region of briars ;
and thinking that whatever the game was, it woidd
probably break downhill from the thicket in which
the dogs Avere baying it by a little track that pjissed
me, i jumped on to a tree-stump and waited.
Stepan was on the other side of the briars, quite
close to the scene of action, and I naturally ima-
gined woidd close in still more and ffet his shot.
After waitinjj a n'ood ten minutes, durinjr which
time neither game, dogs, nor Stepan appeared to

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

153

move an incli, F wliistled to let the latter know
that I was coming to the assistance of the hrave
doii's wliich he Wiis leaving' to their fate. To force
my way uphill through those briars was a la])our
Avorthy of Hercules ; and if the game should have
broken througli the dogs, there wouhl have been
small chance for the hunter fast meshed in that
briary net. When at last 1 did get a view of the
field of battle, so dense were the briars that I could
not have swung my arms round where I stood ;
and though I stood (m tiptoe, all I could discern
were the waving sterns of Orhi and Lufra, the
brave old veteran Zizda being too close to his
cpiarry to be visible ; but from where I stood I
could liear his sharp charges and the low snorts
of rage which they elicited from the object of his
attack.

Unable to sec to shoot, I picked up a clod, and
guessing the beast's whereabouts by the low mut-
tered thunder that came from the roots of the
chestnut, I heaved it over the dogs in the direc-
tion of the sound. Then for a moment the briars
swayed as if an earthquake had moved them ; one
of the dogs yelled as he was rolled over, witli
another scar added to his already numerous deco-
rations ; and then, not ten paces from me, ])assing
at a gallop went the biggest wild l)oar \ ever hope
to see. And I missed him. Ft is true that I had
but a momentary glimpse at him as he shot across

I '< CI %

|i/ : '•)

»S4

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

•I' !

a yard of open, and I snapped at him as one would
at a bolting rabbit ; but I sliall never forgive my-
self for missing his enormous broadside for all
that. Far through the crashing forest I heard
him, with the dogs at his heels, for almost ten
minutes after I had missed him ; but I never saw
him again.

I had heard frequently previous to this of the
immense size of these Caucasian boars when old and
lonely, and have myself since seen the specimen in
the Tiflis Museum killed by the Grand Duke or one
of his friends at the Royal forest of Kari^s, which is
said to weigh twenty-one puds ; and as sixty-two
puds go to the ton, this would make him about 780
pounds. But in my own mind I feel con\Tnced
that the boar that charged past me from his dark
fastness at the root of that old chestnut was half
as large again. Every angler knows that the fish
you miss is the heaviest that ever rose at your fly ;
of course I may have misjudged the dunensions
of my boar, and therefore ask no one to believe
in his immense size, though firmly believing in
it myself.

That boars should grow to an enormous size
here, where they are never disturbed, and where
every variety of food to which tlicy are peculiarly
partial is so abundant, is hardly to be wondered
at. The forests are full of all sorts of fruit, of
which bears and boars alone have the gathering ;

HUNTING Willi DOGS.

155

patches of bracken, on the roots of which the boar
feeds, are on every hillside ; at certain seasons of
the year he finds quantities of fish washed upon
the shore, and on these he riots. As for the chest-
nuts, some idea of their abundance may be formed
from the fact that, kneeling in one place not pur-
posely selected, to-day, I filled all my pockets with
fallen chestnuts without once changing my posi-
tion ; and yet their only use is to fatten the wild
boar, who munches them husks and all, or more
dainty Bruin, who eats the nuts, but leaves the
husk in his path.

Once during the day I saw an old bear as I
struggled through a veil of thorn vine up a
slippery hillside, and firing brought him down
with what Avas almost a bellow of rage or pain, in
a succession of somersaults that took him past me
down the hill at a pace that he would never have
attained to by his ordinary method of progression.
But, alas, on soarching for him at the bottom of
the hill where he should have lain, we found no
trace of him ; and though the dogs followed for
a while, a large stream which he had crossed foiled
them, and sent us back empty-handed.

Twice daring that day did I get into close
proximity to big game without seeing anything.
Once in the thicket, whence tlie old boar had
charged, I had forced my way beyond all hope
of a speedy return, when the sound of Stepan's gun

156

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

down below, and the sharj) treble of the younger
dog's bark, told me something was afoot in that
direction. Straight towards me up the hill came the
dogs, and right eagerly did I look for a tree as
a coign of vantage from which to get a view of the
approaching game before he absolutely ran over
nie. But there was not even a stump in reach.
Round me was perhaps a yard of almost open
space, but beyond this the briars formed a wall
impenetrable everywhere, except at the point at
wlilch I had entered the little opening by an old
boar's run. To quit the opening by the only
apparent outlet, on my hands and knees, with my
tail to an approaching foe, did not seem pru-
dent : so I remained where I was, hoping I should
see whatever the game might be before it saw
me. Suddenly, though the dogs were still only
half-way up the hill, struggling slowly through
the brake, as impenetrable almost to them as to
us, right at my elbow I heard a heavy breatli
drawn, half sigh and half sniif, and then a soft
shuffling of feet in the hidden places of the thicket.
Almost directly this was followed by another and
another sniff, and I knew that a bear was deli-
berately walking round me, trying to get out [)ro-
bably by the road by which I had entered. I
would rather not have l)een there I admit, as Bruin
fiiirly cornered is an ugly foe to face ; and I fully
expected that when the dogs arrived on the scene

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

IS7

he would go for his own private pathway, taking
me as a mere obstruction en route., as I never for a
moment doubted but that he was the beast the
dogs had roused. As I stood expectant, a lovely
wild cat, with a fine tawny skin, marked almost as
clearly as a tiger's, stole snakelike across the open-
ing, utterly unheeding me, and disappeared in the
brake beyond. Expecting the bear in another
minute I let the cat go, and regretted it directly
after, for with a regular burst of hounds' music
our pack dashed into the open, mad after their cat,
and went raging on, taking no notice of the larger
game close by. We searched afterwards, and found
that a bear had really been there, and liad stolen off
by another of the hidden ' trapinkas '(game tracks)
with which the whole brake was -warrened. The
dogs treed the cat, and we spent our luncheon hour
in smoking her out.

The otlier occasion on which I got too close to
big game that day was in a rhododendron brake,
when our dogs, having bayed something on the
other side of the hill, I was hurriedly forcing niy
way to them, when I became aware of sniffings and
tramplings to the right of me and to the left of me,
and plunging wildly on, nearly ran into something
else advancing. Had the rhododendron clump not
been exceptionally high (higher far than my
head), I could have seen my game and had capital
sport ; as it was, I was kept fumbling about in

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HUNTING WITH DOGS.

ff i

the thicket for nearly ten minutes, expecting every
moment to run up against a bear, who was at the
same time just as anxious not to come into col-
lision probably as I was.

Tired and happy after a good day's sport, during
which the fun of racin<]c after the do<»'s had been
a pleasant change from the ordinary silent stalk-
ing, we wended our way home, the dogs at last
keeping fairly close to our heels. When we were
down in the flat by our old enemy, the snow-fed
Golovinsk, the moon came up hazy and dim, and
the owls began their weird hootings ; then with
a sudden rush the dogs left our heels, and were
once more wakening the echoes with a nocturnal
chorus worthy of the Demon Hunter's infernal pack.
In the patch-work of moonlight we caught a
glimpse of something scudding away before the
dogs, and joined heartily in the chase, forgetting
our fatigue in the excitement. After ten minutes'
slow hunting in the briars they bayed him in a
dense clump, where some larger trees shut out the
silver moonshme and made midnight of the place.
This wood being a favourite resort of bears at
night, on accjunt of the roseberries with which
the place abounded, and of which they are fond, we
went somewhat cautiously to work, and as we
pushed out of the moonlight into the darkness we
went shoulder to shoulder, literally feeling our way
with our rifles. The dogs were right at our feet.

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

'59

and, as I expected, were sitting heads in air under
a tall tree, on one of the limbs of which I could
just make out in the moonlight an excrescence
which experience taught me must be a wild cat.
Rifle- shooting by moonlight is not as easy as by
daylight ; and though the cat came down, I don't
think she was hit hard ; probably not hit at all,
but merely dislodged by the bough beneath her
being broken. However, be that as it may, when
she did come down, she scattered the dogs right
and left, and got clear away into the thicket again.
Long after, when we were smoking the last pipe
rolled in our rugs, we could hear them making
music either over her or some luckless jackal which
they had come across.

But this, our great day with the dogs, was the
last on which fortune smiled on us at Golovinsky.
From that day we got from bad to worse. No
more boars fell to our guns, and on wild cats and
fresh bear's meat even a hungry Tscherkess will
hardly feed. But when our supply of bear's meat
failed too, and nothing but a cheese rind remained,
we grew desperate, and having heard of a place
with a name fathoms long about ten miles from
Golovinsky, where boar abounded, and had not
been lately disturbed, we hired two horses from
the Cossacks, and with one of them for a guide
started to try our luck there. As usual, the guide
knew as little of the way as we did, so that we

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nUNTING tVlT/f DOGS.

ir :l

spent nearly all the day in gettin<^ to onr f^ound,
and, on arriving, found not only no vestige of the
hut which we had been told existed there, but no
chestnut forests either. Add to this that, though
the scenery was even finer than at Golovinsky, the
herbage grew nicjre rankly luxuriant every hundred
yards as we rode up the glen — the mist, which rose
in a white wall round us, drenching us to the skin
before we had been in it a quarter of an hour — and it
will not appear so strange that, having toiled all
day to get there, I gave the order at once for a
counter-march, considering that to pass one night
in this den of fever would be certainly dangerous,
and possibly fatal to some of us.

I was not fni' wrong, as events proved, for next
day, although 1 had beaten such a hasty retreat,
Stepan and the Cossack were both down with the
fever, and I had an attack of intense lassitude and
headache, which, if yielded to, would probably
have resulted in the same. Stepan told me the
weather was becoming dangerously feverish, an
east wind having set in, which is always the har-
binger cf ill to the Tscherkess on the Black Sea
coast. Fever never comes, they say, when the
wind is from off the sea ; but when it comes from
behind the hills, then it is that the fever seizes its
wretched victims.

As we climbed over the hills or up the water-
courses to-day, the cold wind that was blowing

HUNTING WITH nOGS.

^(^\

would lull for a minute, and a soft hot blast conio
over us, just as if fresh from the mouth of some
furnace. Then the fresh breeze rising' would blow
it ofFa<>;aiu. These putt's of hot wind recurred at
long' intervals throughout the day, and were, Stepan
jissured me, sure precursors of fever, ^^'hether
they really were so, or wdiether his croaking
frightened us into it, I don't know, but next day
we were certainly extremely ill. Stepan had
genuine fever, and as all Russians and Tscherkesses
do, lay down at once and gave the fever full
play.

1 had read somewhere of a doctor on the African
coast who used to get his fever ])atients into a
room with doors and windows shut, and there make
them have the gloves on with him for a quarter of
an hour, after which the fever left them. I owe
that athletic doctor my best thanks for his example,
and hereby tender them ; for though 1 had no
gloves, and no one to use them u})on if I had. I
acted on what seemed to me the principle of his
cure, and, selecting the stitttst bit of country
1 knew, started on a solitary hunt with the
dogs. At first I reeled, and my knees gave under
me at every stride. I was sick and blind and
dizzy, and felt altogether worse than I ever did,
even after the first half-mile of a Kossall paper
chase as a boy ; but gradually things improved, as
they always do if you stick to it, and I had the

(■i

l63

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

ill' :!

satisfaction of sliakiiii:^ off the fever, never to ])e
troubled witli it any more, thou.!''!! I liave spent
(lays in Poti, of which town Uaron von Thicl-
mann says, in his excellent book on the Caucasus,
that ' no European luti passed u night there and
been spared the fever.'

It is my firm belief tliat abstinence i'rom water
whilst in the chase or on the journey will be found
almost a safeguard against fever, and if, in spite of
this, the mists and chills of the undrained swamps
are too much for the traveller's constitution, a good
bout of violent exercise, taken as soon as the fever
seizes him, will free him from his illness in its
infancy.

That the natives suffer from fever is not to be
wondered at. They live so poorly that an Eng-
lishman would die of want of nourishment alone,
did he live as they do. They sleep out in mists
that soak through and tlirou<j^h a man as no rain
ever could, and, worse than all, in the chase or
on the journey, when heated and over- wrought,
they lie down at every rill, and drink like thirsty
cattle. I attribute my own freedom from fever to
the fact that I never touched the water of the
Caucasus for drinking purposes, except in the
shape of one cup of tea in the morning and one at
night, never drinking at all throughout the day ;
and though my tongue sometimes grew dry and
seemed almost to rattle in my mouth, habit soon

JIUyr/XG WITH DOGS.

«63

eiiiibled me to do without water, and that witlioiit
any fi;reat discomfort.

lUit, althoii«,di 1 avoided fever myself, and
believe that with these precautions a foreigner might
well pass some time in the Caucasus and esca})e,
more especially if he went in late autumn and
returned by the end of March, I have no wish to
describe tiio Caucasus, more especially the Black
Sea coast and the neighbourhood of Ekaterinodar
and the Kuban, as anything but a nest of fever.
Where the vegetation is as rank, and niarslies so
frequent and of such extent as those round Poti
and Lenkoran on the Caspian, the summer time is
a dangerous time for even the most prudent.

For two or three more days, after our visit to
the valley of mist and fever, I continued to hunt
near Golovinsky, though my man was too ill to iielp
me much. But day after day proved more deci-
sively that unless I could get deeper into the forest
than 1 had ever penetrated yet, my labour would
continue to be but labour in vain. So 1 deter-
mined to return to Heiman's Datch, the old ruin
where I got my first boar on this coast, and
after spending a few days there in search of the
])anther which I had wonnded, or another if he
was dead, return to Duapse and thence to Kertch.
To this 1 felt impelled by a number of reasons, of
which the bareness of our larder was by no means
the least. For over a week chestnuts had formed

M 2

1 64

nUNTING WITH DOGS.

the greater part of my fare, breaH even running
short, and as for meat we liarl none. Often at
night I had had to tighten my belt as the be^... way
of reducing the vacuum I had no means of filhng.
But this is a method of vviiich Nature soon wearies,
and I was longing greedily for even the good things
ofDuapse,

RETURN TO KERTCH.

165

liii'lS

CHAPTER IX.

RETURN TO KERTCH.

Retui'n to Heiman's Datch — Bears — Stepan's shooting apparatus — •
Journey to Duapse — A delightful dinner — Interview with the
Governor — Inst (^.~— German farm — A dangerous adventure — A
wedding supper - -Leave Duapse for Ekaterinodar— Krimsky fair
— Rusojan roughs — Peasant women — A show-booth — A hazar-
dous road — Inexpensive travelling— Ekaterinodar — Table-d7i6te&t
the Ptitersburg hotel — The treasury — Droshky -racing — A beaten
rival — Caucasian fish — Arrival at Kerteh.

Of my second visit to Heiman's Datch I shall say
but little, as, though interesting to me, it would
only entail a great deal of repetition for the reader.
I killed two bears, I believe, of which 1 bagged
one, the largest specimen of a brown bear I have
ever seen ; his head, set up \^y Burton, of Wardour
Street, is in my library now, and in no way belies
my description of him. With the boars we did not
do much good, but we at least did enough to get
a fresh supply of meat, though of the coarsest kind.
On one night I sent Stepan back along the coast
at his own request to fetch his dogs from Golovinsky.
It was a ten-verst tramp, and he chose the night to
do it in. I regretted when he came back next
morning that I had not accompanied him, for on

[■■■

■5; •

i66

RETURN TO KERTCH.

his way he met a couple of bears at different points,
both of which appear to have been much ])older by
night than they ever are by day. He fired at one
of them aiid missed him. The brute turned round
and appeared to search for the origin of the noise ;
and if Stepan is to be believed he passed a very
' mauvais quart d'heure,' motionless behind a big
piece of drift-wood, Avhile Bruin sat up and watclied
for him. However, the wind was not right for tlie
bear, so he moved ofl^" at last, leaving Stepnn to
pursue his course unmolested, but resolved never to
fire at another bear by night, alone and on foot —
a resolution to which lie stuck religiously when,
some half hour afterwards, he met another coming
from the direction of his own cottnge.

Arrived at liome, lie found the doo^s had "''"J)*'
off to the Cossack station, and in their absence the
bears had been down from the hills to visit him, over-
turning' liis hives, and even breakini*' the door of his
hut. I felt doubts in my ovv'n mind as to whether
the Cossacks had not been l^efore the bears in these
matters, but as it was a damage wbicli could not be
remedied, it mattered little who bore the blame.

Returning in i\\Q, grey morning, Stepan had a
chance at a sea otter, which he wounded but lost.
I feel that it is only fair to say for Stepan that with
a proper rifle lie was not such an extraordinarily
bad shot as his constant misses would imply ; but
a sight of the tool he used would convince any

RETURN TO KERTCII.

167

sportsman that with such a weapon the chief dan-
ger was to be appreliended from it by the person
behind it. Stepan's way of loading, too, was
curious : two bullets, one in its ordinary condition,
the other chewed into a ragged lump of lead, over
a heavy charge of powder : such was his ordinary
charge ; but when, as on one occ.ision, to this was
added a second charge of })ow^der and small slugs
for pheasants, to save the trouble of extracting the
first charge, with an extra bullet put in next day
to meet all emergencies, the only wonder is that
the weapon ^v'as not more fatal to Stepan than
to the old she-bear into which he put this extra-
ordinary broadside.

But now I must bid good-by to Stepan, whose
last duty was to procure me a horse from the
next Cossack station to convey myself and my
bears' skulls to Duapse. I bid good-by to my
servant with hearty goodwill, for though a poor
guide and worse sportsman, he was a faithful, oblig-
in<2: fellow, and honest in the extreme.

From lleiman's Datch to J)uapse is, they say,
only thirty-eight versts ; but the road over the
shingle at the foot of the cliffs was so bad that it
took mc from S a.m. to (J r.M. to accomplish the
journey. I did not stay even for food by the way,
but ])l()dded steadily on at a foot's pace among
rocks and boulders, with the Tartar saddle galling
my limbs, and a fierce sun pouring down cm th(,'

' 'I

168

RETURN TO KERTCH.

grey cliffs, until every tliiiii( appeared at a white heat,
and all life seemed stilled, excei)t for the myriads
of lizards that revelled in the fierce sunlight at the
cliff's foot. But all things nuist have an end, and
at 6 r.M. I was at rest in the telegraph station,
with a substantial dinner before me and a bottle
of beer, which, if not Bass's, bore at any rate
some faint resemblance to the beverage beloved of
Britons.

On the Sunday mornuig, November 9, I
received a polite message from the Governor of
Duapse to warn me that, as the Caucasus was
still under military law, and not as yet entirely
settled, I nuist oblige him by not going to stay in
any Tscherkess ' aonl,' and if 1 neglected this warn-
ing, he added that my words and deeds wovdd be
watched. Moreover, he requested that I would
bring my shooting trip in his district to an end.
This sounded a formidable message ; but on inter-
viewing the Governor I found liim not by any
means inclined to be un]>leasant, and indeed his
only desire appeared to be to ])n'veiit my getting
into scrapes by meddling with ])oliti('s, thougli, at
the same time, he was evidently exercised in liis
own mind as to tlie real ol)ject of .my visit to rlie
Black Sea coast ; as he, in common with all the
other Russians I met, seemed to lind it iiii))ossible
to believe that any man would visit a distanf h»nd
merely for s[)ort. Severiil tinu';^ I luid )y9^nings

RETURN TO KERTCH.

i6y

from various English residents in the Caucasus
that I was suspected of being a British agent, and,
as such, was fully described to the police, and
carefully watched. Unluckily for me, the boat to
Kertcli only calls every Wednesday, so that I had
three weary days to pass in Duapse.

One of these I spent in a visit to a mountain
farm belonging to a German baron, and worked
by two young Germans, his bailiffs. Here I saw
a collection of insects made on the farm, and
amongst them recognised, in addition to the
species I have mentioned as seen by me before,
both the British varieties of the swallow-tailed
butterfly, the small wood white, the marbled white,
the privet, and the elephant hawk moth, as well
as the death's head, which abounds here. There
were also oak-e<i;<>'ers and stafi'-beetles, as well as
another hawk moth of a delicate fawn colour, which
was stran":e to me.

Ileturning from the hill farm I had an adven-
ture wliich might have terminated worse. The
road from Duapse to the farm, which is situated
lit, u great height above the sea, winds al»ut the
hill in zigza<x lines. Over the road, which is
steep and rough, hang tlie edges of tlie forest, and
from time to time it crosses a rough wooden
bridge, spanning a chasm of consider.'ble pre-
tensions. l)y daylight these chasms and their
wooden bridges mattered but little, for thou<'li

•, 1 ]).

•i 1 U i

I70

RETURN TO KERTCJI.

the bridge trembled as the droggie passed over
it, there was not much chance of an accident so
long us you and your horse could see where you
were going. After my day's shooting I stayed
late at the young Germans', waiting to share witli
them their evening meal, so that it was already
dark when I prepared for my ride home. I liad
calculated on a moon, but, the night being stormy,
I was disappointed, and when I did make a start
it was on a young horse, in almost utter darkness,
and knowing very little of my way. However,
the Germans consoled me by telling me that the
road to Duai)sc was the only road from their farm
to anywhere, and it had no roads branching from it
— moreover, the horse knew his way.

At supper they had told me that one of them,
riding into Duapse some weeks prior to my visit,
had been sprung at by some animal from the trees
overhanging the path ; and though there was
not suiiicient light to distinguish the beast by,
it was sup[)osc(l by them to have l)een a lynx
or a leopard. Not much distressed about this
dana'er, but anxious about the bnd"-es, I started
on my lonely ride. All went well until I was half
w^ay to the river which separates Duapse from the
base of the hill. Then, as we got to tli(^ darkest
part of the road, where the tives ovt^hung it most,
my liorse suddenly turned buck, and trird to ])()lt
for liome. In spite of all my exertions T could

\ I'

RETURN TO KERTCH.

'71

not get him beyond a particular point on the road
home for some time ; and when at hist 1 did drive
him past with heels and whip, lie dashed nway
with a sudden plunge, and, catching the bit in his
teeth, bolted as hard as he could gallop from that
point to Duapse — or, rather, the river that gives
that town its name. It was no good my trying
to stop the hard-mouthed little beast with the
feeble tackle at my service, and, dashing through
the darkness over the roughest of roads, I could
only sit still, and hope that the sagacity and keen
si<>ht of the horse mifi-ht save both his neck and
my own. I had no time to feel nervous as we
crossed the first bridge, which seemed to rock as
we dashed over it — a couple of bounds, and we
were on the other side — but from that to the next
bridge my mind was tortured with visions of the
horse's feet slipping from under him on one of the
poles, and the inevitable fall that must ibllow.
]>ut horses have wonderful eyes, and, if left to
tliemselves, see as well in a dark night, T think, as
their riders do by day ; and, in spite of the rough
road and the bridges, w^e were soon breast deep in
the stream, and half swunming, half fording it,
came in safety to the other shore.

Amongst other things w*hicli served to pass my
time whilst waiting for the boat at Duapse was a
peasimt's wedding supper. At the ceremony itself
I was not present, but I presume it was like all

»;, ;i

172

RETURN TO KERTCIL

other weddings in the Greek Church, with its
crowns held over the heads of the principal parties,
and its symbolical knotting of the handkerchief.
But the supper and its ceremonies were strange to
me. During it the happy pair came in, not par-
taking of it with the rest, but merely presenting
themselves to perform certain ceremonies. Of
these the first was to take a blessing from the old
people. This they did, turning in succession to
each of the four quarters of the earth. Refresh-
ments having been brought in, and all sitting
except the bride and groom, these latter handed to
each guest in turn a glass of wine or spirits, a cake
and a coloured handkerchief. The cake you cat,
the handkerchief you were expected to pocket as a
wedding gift from the ' nouveaux-maries,' and the
wine you drank ; but if in drinking it you were
maliciously inclined, it was open to you, without
appearing guilty of rudeness, to declare it was sour.
At the word ' gorko ' (sour) the wretched bride
and ffroom were oblio'cd to exclian2:e embraces in
public, and this as often as you chose to repeat the
sorry joke. In return for the cake, wine, and
kerchief, each guest was expected to place some
wedding gift on the tray for the young couple, and
in this instance the gifts were made in every cjise in
money.

After these ceremonies had been concluded, the
chief actors retired, and left the guests to mjike

RETURN TO KERTCH.

173

Its

is,

Ito

iiieny at their leisure. There seemed in this par-
ticular instance to ])e a chorus of old women
enf^aged to sing, dance, and otherwise l^ecome
objects of ridicule. These hideous old crones
gained the goodwill of the guests, as well as
innumerable drink-offerings of neat vodka, by
singing lugubrious chants, to my uneducated ear
more lit for a funeral than a wedding. This they
supplemented by indecent antics on their hind legs,
and a great deal of coarse buffoonery. The only
musical instrument was one in great favour
amongst the moujik class — I mean the concertina.
As for the other guests (for I presume the old
women were invited and not paid jesters), they sat
down steadily to gorge and to drink, and so well
did they stick to their self-imposed task of making
beasts of themselves, that the wedding sui)per
lasted until the morning of the third day, when its
drunken harmony was finally marred by one
drunkard beating a girl, and another breaking a
bottle over the head of the first, at which crisis the
law stepped in and took the supper party under its
own ])rotecting wing.

On Wednesday, November 13, 1 gladly shook
the dust of Dua])se off my feet, and embarking in
one of the llussian Company's steamers, passed
pleasantly thence to Novorossisk. I was obliged
to return to Ekaterinodar to re3over my luggage
and to obtain any letters which might have arrived

i f!! ■

»74

RETURN TO k'ERTCH.

for me clurini»; iny iibsencc at Golovinsky ; and
anxious to see as niiicli of the Caueasus as possible,
J arran<^e(l to steam to Xovorossisk and ])roeeed
then ee overland to Kkaterinodar. I liardly think J
was re})aid for my troulde, as the eonntry thron*i;h
whieli I passed was not of a very interestin<i^
nature, and more like the neighbourhood of
Tumeruk than of l)ua])se. At Novorossisk 1
hired a cart (fourgon) with two horses and a driver
to take me to Kkaterinodar, calling at the Red
Forest en route. The distance was 114 versts, and
including sto[)pages, with the heavy cart behind
them, the game little horses did the journey in
thirty-three hours. It is wonderful what Russian
horses will do and on what a little food they do it.
Neither of the horses in this instance stood fourteen
hands, and tliey got no corn whatever on the
journey.

On our way to Ekaterinodar we stayed at a
large village called Krimsky — a Cossack settlement
I think it was originally ; and here we encountered
another of those fairs at which the Russian moujik
buys and sells all he wants or wants to part with
during the year. I wandered into the fair whilst
the horses were being watered, and found it a
medley of every race in the Caucasus, distinguished
from one another not more by their varied and
picturesque costumes than by the endless variety of
their conveyances and beasts of burden. Fashion-

RETURN TO KERTCU.

able (Iroshkies, (lro«»'«»'ies of roiii'h loj^s tied t()y:ct]ior
with rope, liimberiiiL^ fouri^oiis, heavy ' pavosh-
kas,' li^'ht carts, hke huge ozier baskets on
wheels, nearly six feet high, and the house on
Avhcels, which the Mino-relian calls his ' arba,' were
all ranged in rows to form the streets of the fair.
Hound about them stood the beasts who drew
them, varying from a goat to a camel, from a pony
to a team of six grey oxen. The shops are simply
a sheet of canvas spread on the ground, ])erhaps
under a partially-inverted cart — some lew under a
more i)retentious awning ; and here are laid <jut
the trader's wares, whilst he for the most part sits
cross-legged in the midst. The grandest shops, or
booths rather, are generally those in which are sold
the ' ikons,' or holy pictures, for which there is an
innnense sale anumgst the pious liussian peasantry.
They are gaudy pictures of the A'irgin. or one of
the saints, encased in a deep frame of brass, with
much tinsel and tawdry ornament about them ;
but they are to be found in every moujik's cottage,
and before them he pays his simple devotions to
his God, night and morninii;, standing bare-headed
Avitli bent head, for barely a minute perhaps, but
apparently in earnest during that minute. A little
taper is kept always burning before the ' ikon.'

Next to the ' ikon '-seller, you detect by your
nose, if not by your eye.:, the ' sliouba '-seller, for
these sheepskin garments are excessively strong-

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sindHn<r, ("Von in tlicir i^iirlicst stages, Closo by,
ill tlif midst of a crowd of tlic iiiilit'st old woiiicn
on earth (and licrcin I do not malitrn tlie Russian
' bal)oiJslika '), is a pedlar sellini^ knittin<»:-needl('s
and other lioiiscwife'.s ^ear. Tliey nuist he liard to
l)lease from tlie noise they make, for the sound of
their hari'ainin;'' would silence the morninLi: bubel
of 15illin<^SLjate.

At the ])ack of tlie fair is a Ion*; row of fires on
tlie plain, whereat the Tartar is cookinu; the savoury
' shushlik ' (kabob). This is the refreshment-stall
department of the fair, or at least a part of it ; the
other part is to be found at the little s(puire tables
at every corner, on whicli are a dirty bf)ttle and
two dirtier f»-lasses, behind which stands a red-
shirted moujik, and around him drunken Ivans
and Stepans embmce and fi«rht, or ar«^ue and
abuse, for a Russian never fi<j^lits as our P'njilish

/ Or?

rou<»li does. Never, perhaps, is too stron<]^ a word ;
but in my three or foiu* years in Kussia, tliou<jfh I
have known men dirked in broad daylioht in the
l)azaar, and have never entered a bazaar without
seeing one or two rows going on, I have not seen
two real stand-up fights. The Jiiissian rough
barks loudly, and possesses a fathomless reinrtoiir
of abuse, which to supplements with ready inven-
tion, but he rarely goes beyond words. At these
tables too, ' Macha,' the demure peasant girl, as well
as the ' staruka ' (crone), are fre(juently to be found;

AVCTUA'X TO KKKTCH.

^77

jiiid wlicii tlicy tiikc tlicir «il{iss tlicy take it nciit as
tlie iiKMi do, and toss it off' at oiu; \f\\\\) as cleverly,
liussiaii peasant Avomen are hard -working', iru^al,
and the earliest risers in tlie world, heinii' .iicnerally
u]) beiore dawn ; Imt X\\vy are, alas! too often to he
found on their backs dead drunk in the street in
the niorninn-. 'J'his is jit least true of the Crimea
and Caucasus. J can only speak (jf what 1 have
seen.

At the Krinisky fair I discovered a sbow-
booth, and as show-booths are not every <lay
occurrences in such places. I ])rocee(led to investi-
gate it. A rough tent, with strange })ictures of
beasts roughly ])ainted u})on it. formed the abiding
place of the show. IJound this a re<l-l)earde(l
JV'rsian continually ])ro\vled, with a long stick to
thump the heads of j)enniless brats who, unable
to })ay for admission, kept trying to satisfy their
curiosity by furtively lifting a corner of the canvas
veil that concealed the mysteries ^vithin. Avoiding
this functionary's stick, I ])aid twenty co])ecks
(about ()<1.), and entered. There was one other
spectator besides myself, and, satiHfie<l that this
Avas the largest audience he was likely to obtain,
the gentleman of the stick kindly followed me in
and prepared to perform, leaving the litth' boys to
see as \\\\\v\\ as they eoidtl meanwhile. In the
t( nt, in spite <»f all its grand adverti.M'ments, the
whole show consisted only of three small nionkeys

I ■J''H
ii:

1/8

RETURN TO KERTCIf.

tied to a box, tryinu; to <^et nt tlic skins of two
inanc;k'ss (Persiiin) lions, strctclicd on u])riuht
sticks. Tlu'se ii.'id been tlic ylory of tlic sliow,
l)iit liad ivccntly departed tlds life, leavini»" notliiiiL»-
but the foolislidookinii' hides 1 now saw, to their
l)ereaved ])ro])riet()r. After exhibitinu' some fire-
swallowinin' trieks, and a little serpent-charming',
the Persian iuniouneed the performance over ; and
after dis«»ustini,^ him by showin*^ him that I knew
all about the manner in Avhich his deadly serj)ents
had been rendered harndess, J left hurriedly, lest a
worse \\\\\\% should befall me.

My inspection of the fair was here cut short by
the arrival of my driver, announcin*;' the horses
ready to ]>rocee(l. I remarked thjit he seemed
anxious and mysterious in his mnnner, so followed
him quietly, and asked for ex])lanations when we
<!;ot outside ihe town. Then he confessed that
lately two or three hiuhway nuu'ders had been
committed near Krimsky ; that the presence of such
a collecti(m of roui>hs of every race as the fair con-
tained was not calculated to increase the safety of
thi' road, and that his reason for hurryini;' me out
of the fiiir Avas that he wished to leave unnoticed
before dark. From the time I left Krimsky to the
time that I reacllf'd Kkaterinodar I heard of nothini^
but robberies and murders, several of which 1
believe were substantially true, though that mawy of
them were exa,ii;uerated is only natural. l>ut it is

RETURX ro KERTCK.

linrdly to l)e Avoiidcivd at tlint tljcrc should 1k' a
o-ood dcnl of tills kind of crime in such an iiiicivl-
liscd, semi scttlcfl district as the (';iucasiis, wjiih!
in the Crimea, which is far more civilised and
under the hand of the law. hiiihway luiu'ders and

l)ur<rli

)t lud

[U'les are not luikiiown even in the ])re(Muets

of the towns. Tlie worst i)art of these liiuhwav

rohberies on

tlie li

lusslan ])ost-ro:ids is tluit vou

can never feel sure that your yemstchik is not in
leayue with the hlLihw;iymen ; in fact. I liave
heard Russians say that that was almost invariably
the case.

fdowever. we renched our ioiu'nev's end un-
molested ; grateful as far as I was concerned I'or
the only accident that occurred, as helping!," us moi-c
rapidly on our way. This was merely a ehas(;
li'iven us bv some infuriated mouiiks, whose cart
we ran into and considerably damaged, when, as

usual ni

such

cases, my ye

msichik retiu'iied their

curses and souii'ht safety in fliu'ht. Such a ioltiru'
\ never had bejbre ; but I forgave the ciii't even that,
as it ti'ot me into I'^katerinodar half an hour earlier
than I should have otherwise arrivecb

To u'ive some notion of the inexpensive n.'itiu'e
of travelling here. I may say that the sum I paid
the ])easant for driving ine the 111 versts Irom
Xovorossisk was ibiu'teen roubles, and lliis at th(;
then rate of exchange (ten roubles to the ])ound
sterling) would be 1/. <Sx. in Knglish money. A

X 2

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'its

l8o

RETURN TO KERTCII.

^ :i^

meal wliich I liad on tho way at the 'duclian ' oi" a
small villai2;e \\\\ passed tliroiimli, consistini;' of sonj),
chicken, l)laek l)rea(l and tea t«l Viliitinn^ for my
man and myself, toii'etlier witli liay for tlie liorses,
cost fifty-five copecks, i.e. about 1.^'. \(l. Had I
travelled by [)ost from Xovorossisk, I sliould liave
l)aid one-tliird less for my horses and travelled
faster, owinir to the fj>.ct that I should have had
relays of liorses and not the same pair the whole
way ; but then 1 could not liave <^*one out of the
direct course, or sto[)ped where [ liked.

Arrived at J^katerinodar, 1 found myself in a
hot-bed of jiolitical discussion at the tdhlc-d'hote^
where, amongst others, 1 met a certain Loris
Melikoff, a planter in the Caucasus, and brother,
I believe, to the dictator. IJcmembering Prince
Yorontzolf s kindly advice, I carefully avoided
Ijcinji' drawn into the conversation as lonji; as
politics were the subject, althoug'li some of the
thin<jfs these half-educated officers were pleased to
say of England and her Premier ( l^ord Beacons-
field) were liard to leave unanswered. They could
not, however, have paid him a t>;reater com])iiment
than they involuntarily did by the hatred which
they expressed ; and consolinix myself with this
thought, I ate my dinner with an appetite unmarred
by the contem[)t which they were jileased to ex-
press for a nation ruled by 'a dew.' This was
everywhere the phrase which they hurled at my

RETURN TO k'ERTCH.

\%l

head, consideviri"' it in our case a bitter (lisjj-racc that
onr Prime Minister shdnlcl l)e an alien, ami totally
forgettin<>' that not one oflieer of state only, hnt
two-thirds of their hi<;hest otHeials — in fact, almoRt
the entire brain of their country — are alien, and
])rincipally of the race they most affect to hate, viz.
the Germans.

It may be readily imagined that I soon tired of
the society jit the Petersburg Hotel, Kkaterinodar,
and indeed, early on the morning after my arrival,
I was at the treasury (' kasnochest ') applying lor a
travelling ticket. Of course [ had to wait over
half an hour, Avhilc half a sheet of paper was being
filled in with a few signatures and my own name,
and during that time I had an o])portunity of ob-
serving some of the noticeable features in this
public office. ^lost of the clerks were smoking
cigarettes (those who were not had probably no
tobacco) ; none of them used blotting-paper, but
instead cither blotted their manuscript on the
white-washed walls or sprinkled it with sand from
one of the many old sardine-l)oxes, supplied ap-
parently by a frugal government to contain that
valuable commodity. All ex})ectoriited with the
freedom and frecpiency, if not with the accuracy, of
the proverbial 'i'ankce. Almost every clerk had
some decoration, and all were in uniform.

IJut the ' podorojna ' was ready at last, and armed
with it J started once more for Kertch. On the

I . ?!

il V

il II

I :

!(■

iSj

A'AVl'A'A' TO K ERICH.

road tlic rciljiys of liorscs wore ssciiircr tlian usual,
aixl ill onr |>Ia<'<' I wns \vaiMU'(l that at tlic ucxt
station tlicrc was only out' relay, and coni;riituljited
by llic |)osi master (an old ae(iuaiutancc) on being
in time to ,u;et it. As lu- spoke, a IJussian otiicer
with a similar |)ass t«i mine and liavinjjj lioard the
sanu! story i'rom the yemst(;hiks. made vi»;'oron8
ed'orts to li'et otF iirst and secure it. In this he
failed, and I started with a lead of half a verst or
more. Ihit in a short time hi' came in sii»-ht, ajid
to my horror I found \w had, by ]>aylni'' extra,
obtained another horse, thus drivinu' foiir to mv
thri'e, a serious udvantage over these i'earfidly heavy
roads.

The course was a lonii" one, nearly twenty
versts, and by proniisini;* my driver a lari>'e ' pour-
boire ' if we were in iirst, I so roused him that
before ten versts were done our rival was au^ain out
of sinht. As (hu'kness had set in, I made myself
as cozy as J could on my })undle of straw, and
thanks to loni'; practice slept none the worse for
the jolting.

I woke with a start. TJiose confounded bells
that the horses Avear seemed to surround me ; for
whilst my own horses were shaking them furiously
in front in a last desperate struggle to keep the
lead, my rival's four-in-hand was jingliiig them
triumphantly just behind, as he momentarily
gained on us. It was no good, our horses were

RETUI^<\ TO KERTCII.

(lead beat, jm<l every effort tliey made alinost pulled
the wlieels off in the heavy clay. Tlie lour ])assed
us ill the darkness witli a jeer from their yemst-
chik. lint they too had had enoiij^li ot' it, and as
the liufhts of the |)«)st-station were now in si^ht,
they were content to keep just in front of us, lioinir
like ourselves almost at a foot jiace.

A briii'ht idea struck me. The first ' podorojua '
])resente(l «>ets the team, if both 'podorojnus ' are of
e<|ual urgency, and there is only one team to have.

e were now not many hundred

yjuv

Is i

rom

station. Touehini*' my driver on the hack, I tohl
him c J take no notice of me : so ridding' myself of
my wraps, with the travelling ticket in !uy hand, I
slipped off the tarantasse into the nuid, and making
a considerable detour to escaj)e observation — which,
owing to the darkness and the triumphant security
of the others, was not dilHcult — I ran my best, and
arriving considerably before the Russian officer,
handed in my ' podorojna,' and had the yemstehik
out after the fresh team before my rival entered tlie
office. When he met me coming out his face was
goo^- to behohl ; but when I had explained how
I had done him, he took his beating like a man,
and invited me to share his basket of })rovisions
and a l)()ttle of wine before parting comj)any. \
hope he had not long to wait for horses.

On the steamer whicli took me from Tanum to
Kertcli was a cariro of fish for the Kertcli bazaar.

■y.\

li'i

[ S

■

1 84

RErC/hW TO KERTCII.

C!iu<r|it in the lake iM'twccn 'raman and Tnincruk.
They wt'iv lor llic most part carp, liii<^(' fellows
weigliin^' from 2') to »)0 Il)s,, and one of the rtsher-
men told me tliey were fre(piently ean«^ht n|) to
40 lbs. in Aveii»'ht. There were stiirm'(^n too, from
the month of tlie Knijan, canj:;ht, so they said, in
snares, somethini;' after tlie fasliion of onr ordinary
rabbit snares, as thiy routed with their noses })i«^-
like aloii;;' the bottom of the stream. There were
too 'suchik' (San(h'e), an excellent tisli for the table,
and the liideous ' som ' (Silurus) — largest, 1 believe,
of (Caucasian fresh-water fishes. This whiskered
water-fiend i)lays the part of the pike in the Cau-
casian lakes and rivers, feedinji; on all other tish,
and anything else in fact that he can find. From
what 1 have seen 1 should say the pike was rare in
the Caucasus, having only once seen one, and that a
very small specimen, near the Cas))ian. The ugliness
of the ' som ' has led the inventive mind of the Ilus-
sian moujik to create all sorts v^)f legends regarding
him, such as his laying hohl of the limbs of horses
and cattle as they crossed fords near which he was
lying; and even of his seizing, and thereby drown-
ing, a man under similar circumstances. They tell
too of his growing to vast pro})ortions ; one llus-
sian colonel, whose home is in the Red Forest,
claiming, and being connnonly reported, to have shot
one with his rifle while basking in the Ivuban.
where it passes through the Crasnoi Lais, which

K/:TUh\y TO KERTCH.

185

woi,«,^hod over 2(H) ll)s. I four this sounds very
luiich like lislu'ni.im's wciolit. Whjit dthcr won-
derful stories of tlic monsters of lake and river I
niinlit not have heard, I cannot tell, fo* here the
steamer was made fast to the Kertch jetty, and
am()n<»st the hearty eon<,^ratnlations of half a dozen
friends, my second tour in the Caucasus came to a
hap|>y end.

f i.

186

rii'i.is.

CIIAPTKR X.

TIFLIS.

The Russrt-Turklsh AVar — Siikhouni — Alloj^cd abundance of jjaiu«^ —
Poti — My fellow-travt'lk'iM— Sport in Kutais — Arrival in Titlis —
IloU'ls and otluT It-aturt's of tlio town — Tlif British CmiMd—
— Orjran-i.'riiider.s in rcqiu-Nt — A ' happy day ' - Drinkinfr lialiits —
Native wines — (Jernian settlors — Shooting f.vpt'dition — A caravan
— KariiiR sti'ppe — A lawlt'SN country — Ft-vfTN— Antt'lupc-liiuit-
inj,' — An unpleasant ad VfutiirH : runiiiiiir for dear life— A wo'oided
antelope— The liins of Tiiliw Miiit'iiin and bazaar — Schonjboyp
— Provalencf of uniforms and orders — IMienonicna of llnssian life
— IJuyinir n travelling jtaR^— Pro lessor IJryco's ascent of Ararat.

I AumvKi) at Kartell in an o])})ortune nionicnt, for
on the (lay of my arrival tlu; little town wclconied
back one of its lieroe.s in the Tin'kisli war, and as
he was an old friend of mine, I came in for my
share of the merry-making. ]\Iy friend and I were
invited to a large snpper-party, eom})osed of all the
yoinig blood of Kertch, and were together feted,
he as warrior, I as spoilsman, both fresh from a
co'nmon field of glory (and discondbrt) in Asia.

Of tlie Tnrkish Avar our friend had little to say,
except that the discomfort had seemed to him
greater than the danger, as the Turks were exe-
crable marksmen with the rifle, and thoiigh ca])ital
artillerymen, none of their shells would exi)lode.

TIFLIS.

rs;

This I liiiv(! licanl rrctiiicntly both hcforc ntid

siiwe.

Till! nrrival of tlic old st('iniishi|) ' Kotzchiil ' on
Simdiiy put nii ciid to idl these ijjaictii's as far as
I was cniiccriic'd : and Icavlnu' behind nic a whole
mass of invitations unaccepted fmni my hospitable
friends at Kertch, 1 once more sailed for theCaucasus,

From Kertch to Poti we had a fair and pleasant
voyage, over n sea calm and still as an iidand lake,
past a coast where mountaiiis in the backjiTound
sink into hills in the I'oreu'roiind, and tin; hills
themselves run riiiht dov ;. ini') tlw sea ; while
almost from the point wlu-re they touch the waves
Avith their feet the forest starts upwards and clothes
them to the very sununil. On November Sf), at

Sukhoum, the skies were blue and cloudless, man

of till! trees still in their •••reen folian'e, some doiibli

r> 1

petalled wild roses in full bloom, and the tem-
])eratnre that of an l^^n^lish summer.

Sukhoum itself thou^i»h, in spite of the hnely
weather, is Imt a sorry siu;ht. The houses are most

of them ruins : the town is full of soldiers cj

imp-

ing amongst the ruins and making confusion
worse confounded ; the gardens are already half
absorbed in the wild growth that surrounds them ;
the splendid avenues of ' bignonia catalba ' which
once graced the town have been ruthlessly cut
down, though useless I shoidd think even for fire-
wood ; there is no church, left, and I saw very few

I. ifi'

188

TIFLIS.

women. The streets are over<ifrown everywhere
with Ijelhidoiina, one of the commonest weeds here.
Bnt whilst meditating over the desohition of Snk-
houm, and gathering its wild roses, the whistle of
tlie steamer broke nnpleasantly on my ear, and my
friend and myself had the nearest escape of being
left behind for a week, by the end of which time we
should have had enough of Sukhoum I think.

On board the steamer I met a certain Col. G., a
very well-known and successful si)ortsman, not only
in the Caucasus but throughout Ivussia. He had
spent three years between Elbruz and Sukhoum,
and had devoted a great deal of his time to sport,
but admitted that he knew very little of the country
yet. It was his opinion that this district is richer
in game than any other part of the country; and if
by game you mean only large game, I entirely
agree with him. In this comparatively small jirea
he himself had either shot or seen shot aurochs (bos
urns), 'oUen' (Russian red deer), roebuck, ibex,
chamois, wild goat, mountain sheep (tiir), leopards,
lynxes, otters, bears (of which he too said there
were, at least two kinds), jackals, and here, and here
only, the black wolf. This is a beast of which I
have heard frequent mention on the Black Sea
coast, but have never seen it. It is probably only a
slight variety of the ordinary animal, but I think,
from frequent mention made of it, that it must be
a variety which is more or less prevalent in this

TIFLIS.

189

coMiitry. The best place for auroclis now is
Ijetwcen the Pseebai and up[)ei' Zelenduk riv(^rs,
aceordini!; to my friend. Col. G. told nie of another
animal, which he declares exists in the Caucasus on
the Kuban river, to wit the beaver ; but as I never
heard of this creature's existence there from any of
the natives of the Kuban districts, or from any
naturalist, Kussiim or otlicr, whom I have since
met, I think this last statement of the <iallant
colonel's must be taken ' cum ^rano salis.'

Arrived at Poti, 1 found a very fair hotel for
such a town. nianai2;ed by an obliiiinii- old French-
num ; and though Poti is built on an undrained
swamp, 1 escjiped without the fever. I was met
at Poti by an Knu^llshman, who was at that time
actinii" vice-consul for Great Jiritain, and was liimself
em})loyed as agent to a large timber firm in Eng-
land. To tills gentleman, Mr. Carroll, I owe
many thanks for his useful hints for my journey.
The thnber of which he exports most from the
JUack Sea const, is, he tells me, box, of which large
quantities are found in the adjacent forests ; jmd
the burr of the walnut-tree, an excrescence in
appearance rather like a huge fungus, but liard and
of most beautifully grained wood, out of which the
thin layers are cut, which are used in I'moland for
veneerinj*", etc. The cost of findinji; and trans-
porting ihese woods from the forests in the interior
of the (.-aucasus, l)etween which and Poti com-

■m

I ii'i ;

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i k

' ".;

!* !

tii

/9O

TIFUS.

munication is (lifllcult, renders tlicm oxtrMiiely
expensive.

From Poti to Tifiis 1 Imd two Kni;l i si 1- speak -
inu" iellow-travellers — a German landowner and an
l^niilisli mininir enn'ineer lioinu' to tlu; former's
])ro])erty near Kutais to prospeet for eoal, of
wliieli there is supposed to be a lar<i'e snp])ly there.
The coal, they say, is of ij;ood quality and in scams
of considerable thickness. This enu'inecr, Avho had
seen a great deal of th(^ Caucasus, assured me, in
connnon with many others, that thoui;]! not in
sufHciently lar<^*e quantities to be of any serious
inq)ortance, there was nndoubtcdly <;old in most
of the small river beds between l>atoum and
Duapse. From Foti to Kion the scenery is not
very attractive, the first ])art bcinii' merely a
cuttinii; throuiifh a marsh forest, where ;ill the
growth is too lank, ;ind so dense as to spoil the
individual deveh^pment of th<^ trees whi(;h conq)ose
it : it has conse(piently a mean, stunted appear-
ancc — besides lookin<»: horriblv suii'm- stive of fevei*.
At Ivion, however, we were cheered by the sight
of glorious snow-ca])})ed peaks in the distance ;
and here, having met with a Government ibrester,
to whom I told my story of wanderings in search
of game, 1 was by him persuaded to stay and
shoot for a lew days in the neighbourhood of
Kutais.

After uneartliinii' the local forester, whose senior

TIFUS.

191

my friend was, wo prepared ourselves for any
emergency, by a liberal consumption of tlie inevit-
able tea and '])apiros' (ci<!:arette), and then drove to
an estate of Prince Mirsky's, where we passed the
ni<j;ht. In the morning we had a game drive, and
killed a few roe deer, of which, Tartar fashion,
these fellows eat the kidneys, stid warm and raw,
as soon as the boast was killed. I had the good
fortune to kill a very large wolf as my own share
of the bag, and a very handsome fellow he appeared
when I first saw him, with his fore feet planted on
an old stump and his hackles all up, looking
savagely ever his shoulder in the direction of the
yelping curs which had disturbed him. He seemed
a good deal more inclined to fight than to r m, I
thouufht. His coat was of that straniio colour tluit
I have so often noticed in the hares of the Crimea
about the same time of year — a silver grey, turning
at different points to what you might almost call
rose pink.

Thanking my friends for the sport, and reflecting
that an utter stranger in P^ngland would be very
unlikely to meet with such random hospitality, I
resumed my journey to Tiflis next day. The
second half of the journey is far more interesting
than the first, and in places the scenery reminds
the traveller of Switzerland. The old town of
Suram is one of the most picturesque glimpses on
the way, — a huge ruin of a rough kind of castle

i:J!

i s ,.,

''"' I

i '

!:■

?■■

lU^

Til- 1 IS.

sljmdiiii;" on :i lilllc ('iniiiciicc. willi llic coKii^cn of
its <l('|)('n(l('iil town hroodiiiL;-, cliickcii-likc, iiiidcr
tlu' sli;nl«)\v of its wiiin". Tlic sliilioii, uliirli is (lie
riid ol" llic rnihv.'iy joiinicy Iroin IN)li In I'illis. is
I)\' no nicnns Tillis. jis I t'onnd to my cost, ImiI, is
|Mi( .-IS l;n* iVom llic oiijskirls «»!' 1. lie (icrni.'in colons',
which lornis w conliiniiilion ol' I'illis hcyond ihc
KAr, !is it Wi'll could l)c, Tillis, even l>y stnrliuht,
ai'tcr a h)ni;', dull jonnicy, and seen from adroshky,
is a si^ht not to he lori^otten. Von lee! in a
moment that the town you are now in is as distinct
from any von have ever seen hefoi-*' as anylhini''
well can he. in spite of the (Jrand i)iike's |ire-
sence and thesoher little (Jerinan colony, lMn"o|)ean
civilisation is still only a ri'sidcnt stranger in the
stri'cts Ol' Tillis, The Tai'tar, (Jeoi'Liian, and
Persian are all natural, and in kee|>iiit;' with the
l)laee, hut the occasional hin'li hat of liond Street
persuasion or IJussian uniioiMu is entirely out of
harmony with the surroundi">tis.

As we crossed the Kura hridm' we were methy
a lonii' strini;' ol" camels, and I was nuKth imj)ressed
1)V mv Tirst nuH'tinu,' with these weird, soit-looted
monsters, i)acin<»' tln'ou^h the silent starlit street,
with their heads almost on a level with the rools
of the one-storietl houses on either side, every
now and then i;ivin«;' ;i low I'oar, but save lor this
movin«>" on botwi'en hales like. little towers, nmte
and noiseless as i;'hosts.

Til' us

'93

On lliis, my first iii^Iit at Tillis, I had Iittl(;
tiino to sju'IkI in ndniiriii*:; or wondcriri;^ jit the pic-
tnrcHCjUc medley <»l nun Mnd tilings all round me.
All my time wns nnn'e tliiin (illed Avitli liotel linnt-

Mlt!

Not,

:i siniile

li(»t<

\\\

tlie t

own

Inid

ii room

uno(;(Mi|)ied, tJion;;li I tried more hotels in tluit, ojk!
iiijjflit in 'I'idis than I v\(\y imajzined the; whole
( ^aueasns possesscid eollecttively. 'I'he eanse of" this
wsiH simply that \\\v Lord lii(Mit<'nant was ahont, to
Vwivv. Tiflis next mornin«'', and all the ;^ay world
of'tlje (>an(;asns was in town to l>id him farciwell.

At last I f'oinid a n^stin^i^-phuM! in th(! worst
inn's worst room, hi«jfh np next to tlu; rafters that
8upport(Ml the roof, witliont any fnrnitnre, even th(i
b(!d l)eirj«( represented only l>ythe ])ost-lioNse(;oneh,
two f(!et too short for my le;^s. Ilowev(!r, if my
r<K)m luid its disjidvanta«i;es hy nij^ht, it had its

Ivanti

l)V diiv, f<

i^cs by (liiy, l(jr \\\ \\\v. mornni;^ tlK; view

from my fourth story (the; only fourth story, I
should think, in Tiflis) was sup(!rl>.

Tli(^ town lies clustered round the banks of the
river Kur, .1 broad stream, with stee,}) banks where
it ])aKses throu^jih tin; town. Over its dark AvatcTs
rise ticrn of flat-toj)ped houses with (^xtcTiial ])al-
conies, where the indies tak(' the air and smoke
their cigarettes in the summer evenings, if their
husbands cannot afford to take them to the fashion-
able sunnner resort of Tiflis in the hills. Here and
there fine modern buildings of European character

.'•♦

.! K.1

;

f "5 i

1 t .

194

TIFI.IS.

\ !

f t

K'i.

S :,?;

!lli

mar tlic uniformly Asiatic nature of the scene,
wliile in the streets splendid carria<]fes run into
r()Uij:h lo";-earts on linu^e woc^den wheels draffjjfed
slowly aloni; hy hnlf-tanied buffaloes. Camels
look ])itylni^ly down at you with mild, sad eyes,
as they jstalk ])ast ; Cossacks and jj^entlemen in the
latest Parisian costume jostle each other on the
]>avement ; at the street corners sit ferocious fi<^ure8
with moustaches several inches long, in sheepskin
hea(hi,ear, literally one-fourth the size of them-
selves, engaged in the peaceful occupation of em-
broidering slippers or cushions, which are after-
wards exposed for sale in Abkhasian serais stand-
ing side by side with shops wherein the wares are
fresh from the boulevards of Paris ; and every-
where throughout this strange scene glide the
Georgian women in their white mufflers, which
resemble nothing so much as a sheet wound round
their ptu'sons, showing only their faces and a few
inches of many-coloured skullcap at the top. Here
and there yon see a Tiflis water-carrier with his
skins of precious fluid carried on his horse's back ;
a Persian selling hawks, or a band of Swanetian
minstrels in skullcaps of white felt. However,
when T first looked out from my lofty post of
vantage on the morning after my arrival, Tiflis
was but barely awake, and the sights I have
described above were only partly visible ; the rest
gradually appeared as the day got older.

H:
jiiii

TIFI.IS.

195

into

Ah I sat on my balcony at six o'clock in the
morninj^, witli my jtIjihh of tea and that Icatliery
rinj^ o^ bread they call a ' bublik,' wliicli fonnH
tlie re^idar ])reakrast of a Russian, tlu; only thiMo;s
stirrinjz; in the streets below W(T(! the ' dworniks '
(watchmen), and a f(!W lumberinjij peasants' carts
cominf^ into the ba/aar. I was thankful, when
the day j^rew older and the streets more lively,
to leave my room and fjfo in search of some-
thing more like an English breakfast, before; begin-
ning the business of the day ; and though I had
some ditliculty in getting the waitcT to supply me
with anything more solid than a(irated bread at
such an early hour, I did eventually succeed in a
capital hotel (the name of which I am sorry to have
forgotten), which I thenceforth made my home.

My first business was, of course, to find out our
English consul — a duty which, if travelling Eng-
lishmen always observed, would conduce materially
to their comfort. It is besides a piece of courtcisy
which ought not to be neglected. To a Londoner,
who does not know the way to any place, the first
thing that suggests itself is to hail a cabman, whom
he looks upon as an unfailing pilot. Acting on this
belief in the unerring topographical knowledge of
the race of Jehus, I hailed a droshky, and having
carefully explained to the driver where I wanted
to go, sank back in the cab, giving myself up in
perfect trust to the guidance of my pilot, and

o 2

'\\\

I'M

\S.

'Suit

(. ,■«

196

TIFLIS.

1 \- m

rapidly forgetting everything but tlie scene in the
streets we were passing through. A more perfect
melange than Tifiis is impossible. There are no
two houses alike ; there are no two groups of gos-
sipers by the way speaking the same dialect ; in
every street there are a score of costumes belonging
to different nationalities ; and, as I afterwards found
out, you can, by leaving these main thoroughfares,
dive into yet another world and a worse Babel, by
turning down towards the river and entering the
bazaar.

Shops there seemed to be many and good ; one
of the best in the place being kept by a Scotch-
man. The most attractive to the European are
those in which they sell Persian work, cushions,
carpets, and arms. In making purchases in these,
it is as well, however, to take a friend with you,
who knows something of the wares offered for sale,
as well as their approximate value, and the tricks
of their vendors. By doing this I certainly in pur-
chasing things to fit up a smoking-room at home
spent barely 100/. in place of about 250/., the sum
to which the original demands of the tradesmen for
each separate item would have amounted. Nothing
annoys a foreigner more, I think, than this enforced
haggling over the price of every purchase.

But to hark back to my cabman. After driving
me all over Tifiis, through the main street, up
back slums that finally ended in waste hillside,

the

TIFLIS.

197

and into squares which had no exit, and coutaiucd
nothin<^ but shops on a kind of second story — after
hailin*:; and haran<^uin«^ some dozens of })assers-by
— he pulled up, and told me with much complaceni'y
there was no English consul, but that he would
find me two or three other consuls, French, Ger-
man, &c., if they would do as well. For a moment
I was puzzled what to do, as my hotel-keeper had
been unable to give me the address J wanted, and
I hardly knew where else to ask for it now my
Jehu had failed me. But a telegrai)li-})ost gave
me an inspiration. Where those tall slim posts
are, there must be an Englishman or a Gernuui
not far off ; and telling my cabby to drive to the
telegraph station, I soon found all I wanted, as
well as a kind friend in the person of the chief of
the telegraphists, Herr Giinzel.

Our consul, I found, was just the man to help
me — an old Indian officer and shikaree, to whom
all my wants were perfectly comprehensible. To
Captain Lyall I owe much for his ever-ready helj)
and hospitality. With him and Ilerr Giinzel 1
passed the next few days, calling upon the digni-
taries of Tiflis, presenting my letters of introduc-
tion, and obtaining all the information 1 could
collect relative to Lenkoran and the game to be
found there.

With one solitary exception (Prince Gagarin,
once governor of the Lenkoran district) I was told

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198

TIFLIS.

by every one that large game aboiuidecl, and tigers
were things of everyday oceurrence. Ahis ! I lis-
tened to the many, and, in spite of my own con-
seience, closed my ears to the one. One linssian
gentleman upon whom 1 called showed me a letter
just received from an Englishman engagcid in
writing a monograph on crocuses, asking for his
assistance to obtain certain bulbs of tliis flower
supposed to exist at Lenkoran. 1 did my best,
as I promised my friend I would do, to obtain some
bulbs during my stay by the Caspian ; but as there
were no leaves above gi'ound, and as the natives
don't take any notice of flowers, or know one from
another, I was completely foiled in my attempt.

The number of musical instruments in the
streets of Tiflis would lead one to believe that the
population is a most musical one. My old enemy,
the barrel-organ, turned up here in great force,
es[)ecially about the German colony. The Arme-
nians seem most fond of it, and during my short
stay in Tiflis I twice saw a droshky containing a
couple of Armenians evidently on the spree, with
organ and organ-grinder crowded in on the top of
them, playing away his hardest, while, with beam-
ing faces which plainly testified that they were
doing the correct thing according to their lights in
the best style, they rattled through the streets.
Those who know these people will tell you that it
is their favourite folly, when they have had a little

TIFLIS.

199

too iimcli to drink, to engage iin orgiin-gruidc'r l)y
the day, drive liini about playing over tliciii, until
they have called at so many ' cabaks ' on the way
as to render their seats in the droshky insecure,
and then, alighting at their favourite drinking-den,
enthrone their grinder on the table round which
they sit, and to the tunes of their beloved instru-
ment succumb gloriously to the united charms of
Bacchus and Apollo.

Next morning they go home from the gutter
with a consciousness of having spent a hapi)y day,
as a happy day ought to be spent, and regard its
memory as a thing to be proud of. It seems n
strange thing, but in Russia and amongst these
people the peasants envy a drunkard instead of
pitying him. Drunkenness is to them a highly
desirable condition, and shame for it they cannot
understand. The most popular Englishman who
ever lived and travelled amongst the Caucasian
tribes owed his popularity entirely to the enormous
quantity of strong drink he could -^l^sorb without
doing himself any harm. The Circassians them-
selves have an almost incredible facility for drinking
large quantities of wine without any apparent harm.

^4 pwpos of wine, the wine of the country, or
rather one of the wines of the country, the Kach-
ketinsky wine, both red and white, is admirable,
and far superior to any of the imported wines to
be met with at Tiflis. There is another wine which

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is ii j^ood (losil drunk by the Indies, culled ' Doiiskoi.'
It is sometliiii"^ like Moselle, red in colour jind
unhejiniMy swei^t to the puhite. The people drink
vodkjijind roiii;h native wine in their '('{ihaks' and
'(Indians,' as well as arou<(h kind of beer, very sweet,
sind more like what mead nnist have been than like
any beer of to-day. Tillis itself is full of beer-
halls, but these are rather I'or the military and the
Germans than for the natives. These (icrmans
are, I fancy, an unpopular race in the Caucasus us
well as in l\ussia, not from any inherent vice in
their natures, but from the fact thut, being more
civilised than their neighbours, they utterly refuse
to mix with them, living apart in their colonies,
with their own society, school, and church, prosi)cr-
ing beyond any other settlers, and by their staid
sobriety and orderly, thrifty life, forming u contrast
to the lite around them too favourable to them-
selves to be pleasing to their neighbours. ' Neniets '
and ' eolbasnik ' — dununy and sausage-euter — are
the sobri(piets in which they rejoice.

On the fourth day ufter my arrivul at Tiflis the
town, in s}>ite of its novelty and ever-varying
scenes, began to pall upon me, and with some
ditfteulty I arranged u shooting expedition to the
neighbouring steppe of Karias. Mere the Grand
Duke holds his shooting parties, and enormous are
the bags made, though the festivities are of such a
nature as one w^ould iniasine to interfere con-

TIFLIS.

20 1

Hidemhly witli the Hh<)()tiM«(. I»iit, alas ! for us,
tluTo wore; to Ik; no royal forests with inmiincraM(!
iM'aters mid any quantity of boars and tall wA
deer. Our huntin;^' grounds were tlie wide st(!|)[)e-
hnids outside the vieere«i;al preserves, wliere ante-
lopes (^,siiluintfHivs<v) and all the rufhaiis who are
wanted hy the Government at TKlls do mostly
congriigate.

Karly, then, in the morning, wliile tlic stars
were making up their minds to retire for the day,
and a faint pink was just stealing into the sky,
our party rattled out of Tiflis ; tluj l^nglish eonsul
and myself on horsebaek, the rest of our party on
wheels. (Jur way lay throu ;h the Tartar bazaar,
where the fiery-bearded L*ersians and astute Arme-
nians were already astir, and then, over the broad
Kur, and through lands which but for the arti-
ficial irrigation of which the Kur is the source
would be absolutely barren. On our road we met
a (puiint cavalcade, if that may be called a caval-
cade which contained but one horse : a vast train
of donkeys, some brown, some white, several
hundreds in number, part bearing bales of mer-
chandise, and part their owners. Here and there
amongst the troop a black conical tent ambled along,
nothing visible but the tent with four thin legs
trotting along under it. This was a Tartar or
Persian on liis donkey, his ' bourka ' round his neck,
hanging m loose folds to his animal's knees, and

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202

TIFLIS.

completely concealing man and beast. The caravan
was on its way to Persia, and was the only one
of the kind I ever saw, though trains of camels and
carts are of frequent occurrence between Batoum
and Tiflis.

Karias, or the black summer, is a name which
this steppeland has earned for itself by the excessive
virulence of the fever which raged there after the
introduction of artificial irrigation. It is some
thirty-five or forty versts from Tiflis, and, besides
being the preserve of the Grand Duke and the
refuge of Tiflis outlaws, it is the home of several
bands of Tartars and one German planter.

It was to the home of this latter that we turned
our horses' heads, after being ferried over the broad
dark waters of the Kur. All the road between
Tiflis and this ferry had been bare and uninterest-
ing: low grey hills, looking parched and lifeless
on our right, a grey dusty steppe at our feet, and
on our left the bare unlovely banks of the Kiir,
with here and there a huge vulture sitting jroreed

O ODD

and sullen on its shore. By the ferry a belt of low
woodland lent some interest to the scene ; but this
was left behind as soon as the river was crossed ;
and far away on every hand stretched the level
steppeland, go bare of succulent herbage as to
appear anything but pleasant pastures for the
many flocks of sheep and herds of antelope that
roam over its surface.

TIFLIS.

203

An hour's ride, straining our eyes in a vain
endeavour to catch a first glimpse of the antelopes,
whose home we were invading, brought us to a
canal with a bridge and toll-house or something
of that nature ; and the bridge once crossed, the
clamour of a dozen curs and the appearance of
several Tartars advised us of our arrival at our
journey's end. The planter himself came to meet
us — a young fellow speaking many languages as
well as his own, a mere boy amongst the worst-
looking gang of labourers man ever put eyes upon,
yet managing them fairly well, and making his
venture pay. His home was a mere hut, utterly
destitute of any of the comforts or refinements of
that civilisation to which he had apparently been
brought up ; and it would indeed need to be a
lucrative venture which should tempt a man to
lead the life our friend Adolphe led. He had been
made a magistrate by the Tiflis Government, with
exceptional powers and privileges ; but, as he him-
self told us, he was a magistrate merely in name,
unable to carry out any measure he might deem
necessary, utterly powerless to punish or bring to
punishment, and so used to the evils by which he
was surrounded as to have grown perfectly callous
to them. Murder, horse- stealing, and every other
crime are of almost daily occurrence. However
openly committed, it is impossible to convict, as
none dare witness against the perpetrators of the

204

TIFLIS.

\ !

crime, knowing full well that, should they do so,
they would live in hourly danger of their lives from
that time forth. And even in the rare cases in
which the crimes have been fully proved, and the
criminals safely conveyed to Tiflis, they have been
set free again on one plea or another, until the
name even of justice has lost all meaning in the
land. In the six or seven years during which my
host has lived at Jvarias he has had his horse shot
under him on one occasion, has had a bidlet put
through his bourka on another, and on a third,
whilst riding into Tiflis, a bullet fired from the
rifle of a concealed assassin broke the jaw of the
servant who accompanied him. If he makes him-
self obnoxious to any of his neighbours in the
execution of his magisterial duties, his best horses
are mutilated, his cattle shot, or his house fired.
Labour is so dear and laboiu ^rs so scarce that he
cannot afford to choose those he employs, and
though a man comes to him red-handed, he must
engage him and be content. Thus it happens
that his own men are the veriest scum of Tiflis.

One ^ellow who acted as my guide was wanted
by the Tiflis police for murder, and a speech made
by my host himself illustrated, I thought, as well
a3 anything could, the utter lawlessness of Karias.
' We generally have mutton,' he said, ' though, as I
have no sheep and don't buy it, I don't know where
it comes from ; some of my fellows steal it, I sup-

TIFLIS.

ildf

pose.' Raids upon sheep and cattle are of common
occurrence, and free fights take phace between the
villages. The cattle stolen are generally driven across
the river and sold at Elizabetpol. Every village
is, I believe, theoretically responsible for the mis-
doings of each of its inhabitants ; and thus a man's
neighbours are to some extent converted into ama-
teur policemen, who watch and report his deeds.
But as a crime is rarely the result of one individual's
enterprise, the culprit is rarely run to ground ; and
even if he is, the village pays an inadequate fine,
and there is an end of it.

Tiflis itself is under military law, and at the
moment when I left it for Karias three men were
under sentence of death for a glaring outrage com-
mitted in broad day in the streets. Two were
to be hanged, and one, in consideration of his
rank as a nobleman, though filling a menial posi-
tion, was to be shot. %

But the stories of the lawlessness of the Cau-
casus might be contmued ad infinitum, were it not
that they would become monotonous, and, as our
consul himself remarked, the state of the country
is so bad that an honest account of it would not
find credence in England. I am tempted to say
more on this subject than I might otherwise have
done, because travellers who have recently written
on the Caucasus, having kept much to the post-
roads, and, luckily, escaped molestation upon them,

h- ■

206

TIFLIS,

have, I think, given too peaceful a colouring to their
picture of the country through which they drove.
In another place I may be able to say more of the
safety of the Russian post-roads.

That the fever from which Karias derived its
evil name was of an exceedingly virulent nature
may be imagined from the fact that in one summer,
out of a village of three hundred inhabitants,
only nine were left alive. The whole place seems
plague-stricken in summer, even the river having
its disease, in the shape of a small worm, which,
burrowing into the skin of those who bathe in
it, eats away whole joints, until the part affected
has the appearance of being withered. One man
amongst those we saw at Karias had a withered
finger-joint, which he attributed to this cause.

About ten o'clock we rolled ourselves up in
our bourkas, thanking our stars that we were not
settlers in the Karias steppe, though as a hunting-
ground it is in every way desirable. Before turning
in we were warned that we ought to be up early,
and, thanks to the too lively nature of our couches,
we were up long even before we need have been.
At one o'clock the misty air feels chill and com-
fortless ; we were glad to busy ourselves vigor-
ously in preparing our horses for the day's sport ;
and, though we felt like blind men following the
blind, we blundered on at a quick step after our
guide into the darkness that encircled us. After

TIFLIS.

lorj

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going some three versts, that seemed to us thirty,
we took our guide's advice, and, hobbling our
horses, rolled ourselves in our bourkas, to lie
waiting in the dark until the dim light stealing
over the plains should show us the antelopes
browsing within rifle-shot. But all our dreams
had to be of the waking sort, for the intense chill
made it too cold to sleep, and, though the grey
dawn showed us no confiding herds, it was none
the less welcome on that account.

Gradually around us there grew out of the
darkness a plain flatter than all fancy can fashion,
with never a tree nor a bush to break the mono-
tony, or to affbrd concealment to any living thing.
Round this there rose slowly on the sight a chain
of low hills, with the river and the low mountains
running at right angles to them ; and on the other
two sides steppe unbroken to the horizon. And
now we rose and shook away the chill and tlie
torpor it had brought into our blood, and with
a pang of regret for that tub which circumstances
BO often denied, we buckled our bourkas on to our
horses, slipped cartridges into our rifles, and spread-
ing out into line, shaped our course across the still
dim steppe for the low hills beyond.

As the dawn brightened we began to fancy
ghost- like figures flitted away over the horizon into
the unseen beyond, and at last we made out clearly
a herd of some thirty antelopes. As they scudded

308

TIFLIS.

■|.

t !

with short stiff tails erect over the plains — their
horns for some reason unnoticeable in the distance —
they looked to me quaintly like large grey dogs,
with none of the deer-like attributes with which
fancy had endowed them. Once we had found
one band, the whole plains seemed to be alive with
them, racing about from point to point or standing
rigidly at gaze. To see them and to long for a
nearer view was one thing, to obtain that view
quite another. Fired at continually by the Tar-
t ars, hunted by the sheep-dogs, though little hurt
by either, they were as shy as any living thing
could be. Stalking them was out of the question,
and they made all attempts to surround them
futile by breaking through the line almost before
it began to close in on them. Nearer than five
hundred yards we seemed doomed never to get, and
after half a day's ceaseless fag and a few wild shots
at impossible ranges, my friend L. got disgusted,
gave it up, and went home.

Towards mid- day we reached the low hills
which bounded the plain on the side farthest from
the canal and our home, and in my eagerness to
secure an antelope I found I had lost sight of my
companions with the horses. This troubled me
very little, as I knew the way back ; and if I did not
find my friends before nightfall I felt quite capable
of getting back on foot.

All over these plains near Tiflis, and in fact

TIFUS.

209

fact

near any town in the Caucasus, large ilocks of
sheep are pastured ; at Karian tlieir sheplierds are
Tartars, whose pens and huts are in the low hills,
at whose foot ] hail now nearly arrived ; but that
I did not know till later. Whilst still lialf a mile
from the hills, 1 noticed a large herd of antelopes
galloping for a point, to gain which they had to
cross m}^ line of march a])out a quarter of" a verst
in front of me. The herd looked as if it had been
recently hred at, and some of its mend)ers were
far behind the leaders, who had already crossed
me. Hoping that these laggards would not per-
haps swerve from the line of the rest, I ran as hard
as I could to intercept them, and was rewarded by
two long shots, which apparently did not tell.

Though the shots did not affect the antelopes
they led me into a most unpleasant adventure.
Browsing at some distance was an immense flock
of sheep, and at the sound of my rifle a dozen of
the huge grey dogs who guard these flocks came
racing towards me, loudly manifesting their dis-
pleasure at my presence as they came. Often
before had I been annoyed by these gaunt beasts
in the Crimea and elsewhere, and even known them
board a traveller's cart as it passed through one of
the Tartar villages they infested, but never before
had I seen them look so much in earnest as they
did to-day. They were all round me in a minute ;
and though still preserving a discreet distance,

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TIFUS.

deafened rae with their liideous din, and resolutely
batHed all my attempts to break throiij^h their circle.
Pickinj^ lip some stones, I tried to free myself in
that way from my tormentors, without any result,
until a larger stone than the rest caught one of their
number on the leg, and set him howling lustily.

Tlien the shepherds, who up till that moment
had been enjoying the baiting of a stranger from
the far distance, utterly careless of what might
happen to the victim, set u[) a shout, and leaving
their flock, one of them came towards the scene of
action. The shepherds' shout acted in the most
inspiriting way on the attacking forces, Avbich at
once closed in on me, one brute flying straight at
my throat, and meeting my rifle barrel full in his
teeth, while another wilier cur, taking me in rear,
made his teeth meet in one of the tendons behind
my knee. This was more than flesh and blood could
stand, so rather than be actually worried to death,
I pulled out my revolver and let drive into two of
my assailants ; the brute who had bitten me from
behind ii:ettinf? the ftrst bullet. This sent the
whole })ack flying for the moment ; so seizing the
opportunity before they had time to rally again, I
made for the shepherd, and being extremely savage
collared him somewhat roughly, and g«ave him to
understand that unless he called his brutes off' and
kept them off" as long as 1 was within rifle-shot, I
would put the next bullet into him. After a good

TIFLIS.

:i f

(leal of talking ami violent gesticulation, 1 limped
off, feeling much less sure of tramping gaily home
in case I did not find the horses than I did half an
hour before.

But my adventure was not to end here. For
some time 1 tried to stalk different lierds along the
base of the hills, and was eventually led into the
hills themselves by an antelope which I imagined
was wounded. In following him I must have re-
turned to a pohit in the hills opposite to the scene
of my skirmish with the dogs ; for before 1 knew
where I was I stuud)led upon three Tartars sitting
round a fire, one of whom was my shepherd friend
of the morning. Seeing me they jumped up and
called to me to come to them. Their fire not being
in my course and my antelope still in sight, I kept
on my way. The request became a connnand ; and
then seeing how the wind lay, 1 mentally consigned
them to a more tropical climate, and looked anx-
iously out for the horses. As I did not come to
them, two of them came running to me, while the
third, from the top of the hill, sent out a signal-cry,
not unlike the Australian ' cooey.' My first thought
was to stand and fight, for their intentions were
obviously hostile ; besides I knew that I should
be made to account for the daniuu'c^ I had done
their pack in self-defence that morning. Ihit a
moment's thounht was enough to show me that
unless I meant to use my rifle, my chance against

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212

riFLIS.

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the four (for anotlier appeared at once on tlie
scene) would be extremely j)oor ; so with a <^ood
start I took to my heels and ran. Up one hill and
over its brow into the valley that separated it from
another no bigger than itself, — from that to another
and a tliird, the chase went on — the pursuers
"•rowin<i- in numbers each time I looked back,
initil, when cpiite blown, I stopped to see whether
my ride would intimidate them, they had in-
creased to over a dozen. A shot from my rifle
did stop them for a moment or two ; but before I
was well at the bottom of the hill from which I
lired 1 heard them coming on again. And here
1 began to feel things were retdly extremely serious
for me. I had killed their dog — 1 had therefore
little mercy to expect from them. I was dead
beat, and my bitten leg made runninij^ all the more
difficult. I had only half a dozen cartridges with
me ; and at the very best I coidd not hope to make
a good fight of it, so poorly furnished with ammu-
nition, against so many rascals with their blood
up, in a })lace where there was no stone or bush to
get behind. That they would make short work of
me if they caught me I had little doubt ; the
((uarrel would in their eyes justify any outrage,
and my good rifle be an additional incentive to
them to give me my quietus.

But here a double saved me. At the bottom
of the little hill I was still on was a wide earth

TlhUS.

crack : into tliis I jiiin])Otl, whilst my pursuers
were still on the other side of the summit, and fol-
lowing the course of the chasm I <h)uhle(l round
the base of the hill a little way and then waited.
Yelling like demons the Tartars came over the
hill, and to my infinite relief, snjiposing me pro-
bably to have just topped the next rising ground,
redoubled their exertions to overhanl me in the
direction which they fancied I had taken. Once
safely past me, T turned and ran back on my track
for some distance, and then mnde for the plains. I
am thankful to say that there I found my friends
and the horses, and heard no more of either doos
or Tartars.

It was now getting late in the day. My friend
G., disgusted with having toiled many hours and
taken nothing, returned to Adolphe's. P>eing still
keen to secure at least <me head as a souvenir of
Kariils, T kept my horse and the guide, to make one
last effort before giving up the chase.

I had heard that by riding round and round a
herd in ever-narrowing circles, a shot might some-
thnes be got from a nearer point than could other-
wise be hoped for. Deternuned to leave no stone
unturned to secure success, I tried this method,
and after ridinir enou<»'h useless circles to have made
both man and horse giddy, I at last got within four
hundred yards of a small iierd, which, standing
witb their heads up, were just preparing to break

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Tirijs.

.Mwny ni^nin, wlion. trnstin«»; ratlior to my aim on
foot tliJiii on liors('l)}»('k, I sli|)|)0(l out of tlio smMlf,
Jind, allowini»; for the distanco, fired at the nearest
l)iu'k. At tlie report tlie wliole lierd took to fii<^ht,
tlie animal shot at brini^hi^j^ up the rear. Hardly
hojiing to effect anything, I fired again at him,
and that time thought I saw him stagger as if the
bullet struck him. P>ut he recovered and went on ;
and after catching my horse I rejoined my guide
and j)rej»ared to go home em))ty-handed.

On telling him, however, that I fancied I had
hit the last antelope T fired at, he insisted on fol-
lowing the herd to see if we could not run down
the wounded beast, which he thought would not
go far. And he was right ; for after a ride of less
than a mile the antelope lay down, and, to my
inexpressible delight, T was able to ride back with
a fine young buck on my saddle. l')oth bullets
had struck him behind, but had not smashed any
large bones. In sjiite of my hard day and my
swollen leg, that certainly was a moment of triumph
in which I deposited my hardly-earned game in
the midst of my half- incredulous fiiends. But
after the way of the world, having vehemently
assured me that if I worked for a week I should
never get an antelope without dogs to hel[) me,
now, with the buck before them, they calmly in-
sisted that it was only the luck of a tyro, and
would b(i the first and last 1 should ever bag.

7'JF/./S.

ai5

Wo stJiyod nno moro dny ut KjiriAs, ('n('()Mni<r<'«l
so to do l)y my success on tlic lirst dny, imd on
this M'cond day I wa.s a«i;uin in luck, tlion<»li for tlit;
time 1 did not know it. Al'tcT a lon;jf patient stalk,
by ijtilisni<( tlie only l)it ot" slightly risin<4" <i;roiind
between myself and the horizon, I jjfot within two
luindred and fifty yards of three antelopes feeding-.
One of them, a s})lendid white-faced old liuck, with
a beautiful head, stt^xl at jj^aze, h)okin<i; towards me,
and broadside on. I heard my bullet strike him
as plainly almost as if it had struck a rini^injjf Indl's-
eye, and at that distance I expected to see him drop
in his tracks. For a moment lie fell on his knees,
and then recoverinf^, came straight towards my
place of ambush, passing me at a terrihc pace not
more than thirty yards off. I fired the other barrel
at him, but though I aimed well in front, 1 saw the
bullet cut up the stej)i)e in a line far behind him.
Had I had my horse with me I might have had a
chance ; but as it was, thongh I ran some distance
on foot to see if my prize would not drop after
going a few hundred yards, I had to give it up,
and the last I saw of the antelope that day was as
he disappeared from sight with half a dozen shec))-
dogs at his heels. He was found next day i)ulled
down and eaten by dogs or wolves ; and luckily his
head, which my friend I^yall obtained for me, was
but little hurt. The ' express ' bullet had caught him
full in the centre of the shoulder blade, splitting it

si-'; ^i

i m

rrr

If I
ij I

III

IE .( 'I <

k ij
l> i

216

riFLIS.

riij^ht anfl left. How any beast contrived to go
as he (lid with such \\ wound I cannot miderstand.

Towards evening- the antelopes, which had
been a good deal harassed tlie hist day or two,
appeared to pack, and I once or twice came across
large herds, one of which must have numbered
from 150 to 300. These antelopes are, I believe,
not a common variety, being found only between
the Black Sea and the Caspian. The horns, which
are curved back from the brow, start away from
one another at the base, and curve in towards
each other again at the tips. They are annulated
from the base to the point at which the inward
curve commences. The finest head in my posses-
sion has twenty-four rings on either horn, the horns
measuring fourteen inches each. In this specimen
the fiice is quite white from age, all the handsome
black and tan markings of the younger bucks
having faded out in this veteran. On my return
to Tifiis I made another discovery with regard to
this antelo[)e, to wit, that of all the flesh I ever
ate, its flesh is the most delicious.

Like all other game, antelope is very cheap in
the bazaar ; for though the Russians arc far from
being great sportsmen, every peasant has a gun,
and dabbles in the chase for profit's sake. Amongst
the Ku^'sians in the north I doubt not there are
many genuine s[)ortsmen to be found — keen men,
who relish a hard day's work with a spice of

TIFLIS.

217

gun,

danger in it, and wlio care very little for a large
bag if it is not owing mainly to their own skill
or exertions. But of the Russians whom I have
met in three to four years in the Crimea and
Caucasus, I cannot say so much. A Russian,
though he invariably has some chaff for an Eng-
lishman on the score of tr.me pheasants, &c., is
essentially either a pot-shot if a peisant, or a lover
of battues if he be a gentleman. At Karias (the vice-
regal preserves) all the shooting is of the battue
order. At another great sporting centre in the
Caucasus, where a prince preserves the shooting
and wild sheep and chamois abound, even the
chamois are cleverly deluded into becoming vic-
tims of a drive. Deer-stidking, as we uuilerstand
it, and chamois-hunting, as the hardy Swiss follow
it, is a sport unknown here, except to the Tartars
of Uugliestan.

Although there is a plentiful supply of ante-
lopes near Tiflis, all those that find their way into
the bazaar are run down by mounted Tartars,
none being stalked by Russians.

And yet, after their own fashion, Russians are
ver}^ keen about sport. They love to organise a
party, and are extremely hos[)itable to the stranger
in making liim one of it ; but if that st;ranger be a
keen sportsman, and has his mind full of visions
of great game to be found and killed in their native
fastnesses, the sight of the e.iormous supplies of

2l8

TIFLIS.

:• lif

food and wine deemed necessary for a three dn3's'
campaign will strike despair into his heart. I am
sorry to have to say it, because some Russians
have been most kind to me ; but a shooting expe-
dition, as a rule, means an excuse for extraordi-
nary eating and drinking, which is carried on at
such a rate that, spite of the enormous supplies,
the expedition generally has to return on the
second day, having consumed everything.

On my return from antelope-shooting at Kari^ls
I had to spend four or five days at Tiflis as best !
could, waiting until my papers were all ready ^-d
everything arranged for a start to Lenkoruij.
Having left almost all my European clothing at
Kertch, I was hardly in a fit state to make much
use of my introductions, so I passed my time in
inspecting Tiflis and watching the life around me.
And my time, thus employed, did not hang very
heavily on my hands. First, there was the
Museum, where Professor Radde did the honours
in the most genial way, and added to the interest of
the collection by anecdotes of his travels on the
Amoor in the pursuit of his favourite study. The
arrangement of some of the groups of natural objects
is wonderfully artistic, the wild goats being repre-
sented in natural attitudes on their native rocks,
and the vultures gorging on a dead camel in a way
that is almost too realistic. B;;t one of the hand-
somest things in the whole collection is a magniti-

F^Il

md-
nifi-

riFLis.

219

cont rliaTirlpHer of tlio horns of tho, ' ollen ' (Iliissian
rod deer) in the Professor's dining-room. The
sight of this led to my being tohi that at Borgliom,
tlie shooting-box of the Grand Duke, the whole of
the furniture throughout is made entirely of red
deer's horns or other trophies of the chase.

After the Museum, the (to me) most interest -
ino; sijvht was the Tartar bazaar. TIere it was
my intention to purcliase an entire native outfit in
which I mio^ht travel without excitinjc attention, as
I should have done had I worn European clothes,
were it only my moleskin shooting- jacket. Our
consul kindly volunteered to pilot me ; but before
starting on such an errand as the one in hand, cer-
tain preparations were necessary — amongst which
huge l)oots reaching above the knee, to enable us
to wade witli comfort through the mud, and
old clothes on onr backs to blind the avaricious
Armenians, were perhaps the chief. The Tartar
bazaar is a network of extremely narrow streets
lying near tlie Kur, in wliich everything is sold
and every race assists in the selling. Each street
has its speciality : one is the bootmakers' road,
another the silversmiths' or armourers' ; here only
veiyetables and cfame are sold, there furs are tlie
only commodities exposed for sale. And this
system has its advantages, for you can in one
glance take in all the goods of any particular kind
which the bazaar contains. The whole choice of

jn'ilSil

i'l ,

'^k

l|»:

."Im

020

riFLIS.

Tiflis is before you, and if the best there is not
good enouj^h for yon, yon can get no better else-
wliere. But, on tlie other hand, the rivalry of the
different shopkeepers becomes first amnsing, and
then distracting. At one moment yon appear to
be in danger of being torn to pieces by contending
candidates for yonr custom ; the next, there is
every prospect of a free fight among the rivals
themselves. But this gradually calms down ; and
then sticking to one shoji, you ask for wliat you
want. article of the kind required is produced,

the Avoi.s: ^.trobably in stock, and lield up to your
eyes tenderly and admiringly by its owner, while
he pours forth its praises in the most glowing
terms of the East. You don't like it, in spite of
its being fit for the Prophet to wear ; you don't
care about wearing it yourself, you want a better.
Well, heaven knows what will please the gentle-
man, perhaps — and then as by inspiration the
merchant remembers some other specimen of tlie
article required, and producing it pours forth its
eidogy in terms ten times as glowing as those
which described the qualities of the first. This
goes on as long as you will stand it, and tlien with
a sigh the rascal produces something really worth
having. You decide that it will do for you, and
asking its price, are promptly told that to oblige
you the vendor Avill take double its marketable
value for it. My friend taught me the next step

TIFLIS.

32 f

ill the procoedin<^s; and I must admit tliat it is a
vast improvement on the old system of hau'glin*,'-,
whieli reciuires half an hour at least t(^ conclude.
It is simply to offer half the })rice asked, and being
refused, turn and walk deliberately out of the shop.
The tradesman will mark each yard of your retreat
by a fresh abatement of price or by specious offers.
Take no notice, but pursue your way in obdurate
silence, and the odds are ten to one that before you
are out of sight, a little })oy will overhaul you and
bring you back to the shop to receive your purchase
at half price.

One of the peculiarities of the traders is, that
they are continually wanting to shake hands with
you, give you a cigarette, or otherwise scrape
acquaintance with their customer. As you stand
bargaining with them while they sit cross-legged
in their open shop front, they sto[) to call your
attention to one or other of the innumerable gamins
who infest the narrow thoroughfares of the bazaar,
begging for alms. These I believi} are the children
of the shopkeepers, and you are expected to toss
them a copper for the pleasure of being swindled
by their father. These gamins of the bazaar are
an amusing race. Stunted, bright-eyed, and un-
boundedly quick and bitter of tongue, they have
neither fear nor respect for their seniors. The lips
that a moment ago were fervently kissing your
hand for the copper you gave at their asking, are

I, :

ii: V i

323

TIFLIS.

i T! '

'. !

t'i

wm^

•i'~i

at the next moiiieiit going at the rate of sixty
miles an hour in chaff and abuse of some grey-
heard in collision with wiiom their owner has
come. Sometimes even 1 have seen the gamin go
the length of brickbats, but even this elicits but
little remark and no punishment. Some of the
Armenian youngsters were carrying on trade on
their own account, one child of twelve having a
shop of his own, and appearing no mean rival of
the older men around him. But these Armenians
begin life early and develop rapidly, passing from
babyhood to manhood at a bound. Their women
marry at twelve I am told, and I have frequently
seen Armenian girls who looked old enough for
anything at that age.

In one store kept by a Persian, I was im-
mensely amused by the owner's admiration for the
beard of a German friend who was with me. It
was too droll to see the solenni red -bearded mer-
chant in his high conical hat of black felt tenderly
stroking the astonished German's beard between
the palms of his hands. However, I believe my
friend's beard produced such an impression, that
the carpets shown us were of the best, and the
prices asked not too exorbitant.

Throughout the bazaar the streets are so ex-
tremely narrow that you could in many places
spring from one house to another across the street.
Everywhere the mud is more than ankle deep. At

TIFUS.

223

the street corners you are run over by rough carts
dragjjed creaking drearily along by grim-looking
buffaloes, and if you avoid this fate, a stalwart
waterman — with bare brown legs and a round skull-
cap of white felt, with only one garment on, and
that all open at the chest, displaying a skin of red
copper colour, with a huge jar of terra-cotta on his
shoulder filled with the precious fluid which he so
seldom uses — will jostle and knock you down. Nor
must you lose your temper ; for to strike or
roughly handle one of tliese gentry in their own
domains would be to call down the wrath of the
whole bazaar on your devoted head. Here they
have no notion of fair play, and in a moment you
would be hustled, beaten, stoned, and all as piti-
lessly as a welsher on an English racecourse ; and
if, half dead, you escaped without a knife between
your ribs, you might indeed think yourself
lucky.

The most interesting shops to me were the fur-
riers, in which I saw an enormous number of
lynxes' skins, brought, so they said, from the Black
Sea coast ; and the armourers' shops, in which with
the roughest tools they executed most elaborate
and beautiful handles in silver and black for blades
of every quality and date.

Having purchased my costume and seen as
much of the bazaar as I cared to, 1 returned to
Tiflis proper, and here the streets were fast llUing

r ,.1,

■M' '>:]

'I ill

!ll£l

'1; ,J|

ill

■•:

Bli

1 ,M ,

T.7^

I /ir/s.

with tli(» _i:;ymii5is(s rcliinrnii;' iVoin r-cliool. 'V\\v.
iWWvvvwvv lu'lwccii .'I K'lissiim nymiuisl iiiid nii
I'liiiJ'lisli scli()()ll)(>v is ;is m-ciil Jis tlinl iM'twrcii tlic
climalvs in wincli llicy livr. Mvcrywiicn' llic IIiih-
sIjiii iiymnjist li;is tli(> s.'imc coslmnc — w l»liir (Vnck-
<'njil willi l>niss hnlhms ;iii<l iM|iijisi mililjiry-pcjikr*!
t'jip. llis\vIi«»K' iH'jiriiii;', Imwcvci' snuill lie nuiy Im-,
is th.'itof.'i little old iiiMii, li.'iir soldier, liiilC si'liol.'ir,
:iii<i ill nil scdntc niid (jiiitc ii man of (lie world.
\\v lijis, }is far as I liavc seen, no i^umcs ; luN-ir-
linlitini;' is iinkiiown to liiiii ; lliat, stcnu'r kind of
lii»liliiiii;, wlilcli in l*ini;Tisli schooldays generally
takes pljice hehind the chaiu'l, is c(jiially so ; he
wears gloves if lie can aifonl it, he speaks TVencli,
and makes a poor imitation of French manners; lie
is nearly as much addicted to spectacles as a Ger-
man student, is not the least, hit shy in ladies'
s(KMety, and smokes with an easy ^race that many
a freshman nii<;lit envy. Poor fellow, his pre-
cocious social (|ualities are dearly hoiii^ht at the
sacrifice of all the merry, untjuiied rou^jjliiiess of the
English schoolboy.

Everywhere the streets teem with uniforms,
from that of the nymnast of einlit years old to
that of the general of eighty. lUit he not alarmed,
]>acif»c sojourner in the streets of Tiflis ! Many, nay
most of these warlike-lookini;' men are at least as
peaceahle civilians as yourself. That <j;oriz;eous
a|>parel which you helieve must cover the manly

Tiri.is.

Innii <»r Ji (l,".Mliifi«r (Mivnlry ollircr, is hut tlic oirni;i|
dress of >i t('l<'^nn>Iiist, or jiri }H)(»tlM'c}iry'K clerk.
All tlinse med.'ils jiiul <»nlers iMinrti tlie hrcjisf,
not, of w veteniii «:;eiier}il, Imt of ii well-fed, c;on-
feiit('<l tjiilor. Why he ;:;()(- \\\v\\\ he [)erhjips cm
exphiiii U^ yon. I hiive se^-n the phetiomeiio!! of ii.
pejieeMhle eivihiiirs hreiist hhi//Mi;ji; witli hrnss phites
,'iiid orders \\i w (htvernor's reception, hut I never
couM nn<lcrst!md t.hi^ ciMise of that. |)henoinent>n.

To atone for the warhke sisju'ct, of many of its
well-fetl citizens, Tiflis presents to yon, in corrnnon
Avith other towns in the ('ancasiis nnd SonthcTH
liussiji, some strimi!;ely domestic si)ecim(!ns of the
ollicer proper. Any (hiy of tlie W(!ek yon nuiy
meet on tl)e hoidi^VMrd, with sword chnd\iFi«^ hy his
side and perhjips some fair (h'une with him,ayonnn^
(h\'i«i;oon in fnll nniform, witli a [jonltice tiecl rf)nnd
his neck, or ;i lMr<i;e. white cU>th h.'ind.'if^in;^; his
manly cheeks to cm*(^ the fMreiicli(\ Snch a {'m^v-
ch)th we !ire Jiccnstomed to see round the scullery-
maid's reil Dice in Kn«r]jmd, hut in full nniform it
seems a stnni<(e jippendagc! to lieroic yontli.

Tlie I^iHsians are aliojieless puzzk', to a forei^^ner.
They strinj;ently |)ro]iihit the im|)ortntion of tlie
most liarmless foreigrj ntiwspnper, enisin*!; whole
])fissii.ujeK in any sent to residerils amongst tliem
hy post ; and yet Mr. Gnjnville Murray's hook,
' llussians of To-day,' is allowed to he sold, and has
had such a rapid sale that I could only secure a

fi'l'l

■||J

t'!

I li:H

:. r

:j6

r/ri.is.

Mrcoinl-li.'Mid 'riiiichiiil/, cdilion lor love uv money ;
;m(l yd no one i'onid I.msIi IJiissiiiii vices jmhI I'oiMes
with .'I Iriier or nion* iiiis|);iriiii;' liiind tiinii I lie.
Miillior of IIimI exlrenielv <'lever hook. Tliere is m
eonlrjidielion of one kind or jjiiollier in every

|»lijise of Ilnssi.ni life. V

!ie

<llo|»|

|>kee|

)er

wlio

s|M';iks liaU'-M-do/en lMni;ii;iL;'es well, rnnnol, Icll
what cliani;*' lo nive yon wilhonl llie lielp of liis
jih.'iens. i»red in :i wild, ron^ii eonnlry, willi splen-
<lid o|)|»orlnnilies lor lield-s|»orls, and really willi
plenty of phu'k and niusele to e\(*el in lliein, the

t.K

»nssian mMuleinan eares

litll

e or nothmi:'

for tl

lein.

In the sonth, which alone I know, lew except, the
nnlitary intMi ride nnich, and when they do it. is
not for pleasure ; still fewer skatv well, and tin*
best of those who skat(>. at all are hall' (Jennaiis
IVoni l\ina ; there are no j^anies to correspond to
onr t ricket, loothall, or t.ennis. Of indoor ainnsi;-
nients dancini;' and cards are tlu^ Alpha and

()

niciia.

»1aye<l

miianis, as piaye<i in ivussia, rcsenihu

d)h

>kittl

i>S

innch as hillianh

n spite o

f tl

i»ori;eoiis apparel of their |)riesls, and the splendour
of their ceremonials, lew educated Iviissians helieve
in anythini;' ; thouiih the peasant is us truly reli •
nioiis as any peasant in the world. The litera-
ture most read in Ivussia hy ladies and idl(» nu'U is
that ot' P. Ai" Kock, ;ind French novelists like, him.
The luonibers of the upper middle class, if that
means men of a certain position and wealth, can

llll.is.

227

HCJirccly live willioiil imtI'iiiiic nrid cosiMrlics ; yet in
Inivrlliii;;', il'iiof nl Imnir, llicy wjihIi tlirir Dmts niiirii
jis nil clrpliiiiit w.'islirs Ills, l>y «lfji\v"m^ wjiirr into tlicir
niontli !in<l llirn s<|nirlin;^ it onl into (licir liiindH,
\vlirn«'(' (lu'V Irjinslrril h> llM'ir lures, Miiny (iltlicni
despise pnekel -liiin<lkerelii(>rs, exrcpl jis ii ine;ins
<ir convey in;^' perfume jilmiil willi llieni. All of
(lieni will meet, a male aecpiainlimee willi I lie Imiw
of a coiirlier of Louis X\'., and spif. on 1 1 k! carpel,
of a. lady's Wondoir.

r>nl meanuliile I have arrived al. the ollicc lor
tlie sale of' podocojnas', or (ravcllini;- tickets ; and as
I am in need n\' one for llie journey to Lenkoran,
to he ('ornmeiiced on the morrow, I enter. At. t.h<^
desk are two clerks in imiform, with a counting-
hoard hefore them, I state what I want ; and
alter ten minutes spent, in referring to a hook of
fares, an<l wran«j:;lin«i; ami reckonin;^ over the ahacus,
they telJ ine the char«:;e is nine rouhles, hut su^«^est,
that pi'riiaps I would like a return pass, 'Weil, if I
did, wliat would thaf<'ometo ?' Mor<' reasonini»;, ari<i
a hotter dispute tlian ever. At last the answer is
arrived at, nineteen rouhles t(!n cop(!cks. Now,
accordin**; to all preconceived ideas, it secims ahsurd
that a return fare shoidd cost more, \h^{: twice the,
single fare, so I d(!clined, and asked tor a sin;i;le.
Here a (rousultatiori ensiicis, which results in my
heing told with many smiliri*;' a[)ologi(!S that thoy
had made a sli<i;ht mistake, : tli(! sin^i-le pass would

u»

I'll- 1. IS.

' '!

cost (t'U I'nuhlcs. ' All ri!j,Iil,' is my .'Miswcr, ' only
^\\'o it inc.' Here sonic one else's hiisiiiess intervenes,
:in<l tln' second clerk tiMMis to luive Ji clmt ;nul ;i
<'i^}irelte witli .'i friend who luis \v.'nid«'re<l in,
probably from sonieotlici- ollicc, in :in absent, way.
Whilst these two shock-headed eoiniter-jinnpers
are exchanLiinu: elaborate b«i\vs and <'randilo(|nent
speeches, I have to wail in sad disgust. At last,
when the farewell bow has been performed, and the
H'cnlleinan with the <lirty white shirl-i'ront and
j»rison crop has had the hononr of sabilini^ his
fritMid and WMshinii; him i;o()d-day, clerk lunnber
one indnci's elei'k nnnd)er two to retnrn to my
'podorojna.' Then they make a i'oin'tb calculation,
ii()ini»" over all the old uronnd anain, and di*- ^er
with a line smile jnid bow that they bav(> ..I(*
another slight mistake — tin; n>al snm slionld liave
been ten ronbles foni'livn copecks. To j)revent
fnrther calcnlallons 1 hand in a hnndred-ronble
note, and here follows another problem. How mnch
chaniic ouuht they to i»ive me ? Anxious to iret
away I solve the problem for them, and am met
merely by an increcbdous stare, wbile tbe l)ea,ds on
the abacus arc rattled u[) and down liarder tlian
ever. At length tliey make it out ciyhty-ninc
ronbles eii;bty.six copecks, and Avitli a sii>li of
relief hand me ninety i'(Hibles, addini»', as they turn
to the small cash drawer, ' Now we owe yon eighty-
six copecks.' 1 am weak enough to set them right,

;. >

I III IS.

22fJ

:ili(i IiiiihI iliciii niic of the fi V('-i'oiil»l<- iiolcs IcK'k.
Ill rcliini ior this llicy liiiiid iiic ;i tlircc-rniiMr note
iiiid I un singles, Ir;iviii^' (Ik^ error ,'is h.-id ;is cvrr.
A^'iiin I feci iiii|M'll(>(| Uy (■(Misciciici; lo iiiterrcrc in
tlicir inlcn'sls ; iiiid .'ipp.'irciiily iiiiicii !i'j,;iiiist, tlir
;i;riiiii «;('l, lliciii nl, IjisI, lo piiy ipc only wliiil, l.licy
owe, or rallicr two copecks less, for try jis I would
liolJiiiiH; eoiiM induce tlieiii lo he .'ihsoliitt.'l V
tu'c unite.

(JIjkI to «jjet my pass iit last, I leav(! tlie oHiee,
meekly wonderin^i; what a pass to Lenkor.'Aii really
eosts, and whether it would not he clieap(!r in tluj
end lor IJiissia to liav(^ l)ett(T-e<lu(tated employes in
(Jovernment olliees, even il" sIk; ha I to pay th(!m a
trifle more. I took tlu^ troiiMe to jot down this
incident exactly as it liappeiie<l at the time, l)c-
cjuise I tlioiiuht 1 miirht Ik; accused of ov(!!'(;olourini»'

III

y pi(;t

mv. oi liiissi

an olHcial imhecilit

Ilu^^inj:'- my pass to me as tlu; emhiem of friH'-
dom from an (Milorced stsiy in ;i city I was alri^ady
hc^innini!; to d(!test, I drove round to my diflerent
friends to suy adieu, and to m;ik(! my last prepara-
tions for a start, noticin*^ as 1 drove the extraonli-
iiarily liigli-soiiiidin<»; names with wliicli the Hus-
sians of Tiflis di«(nify tluiir drinkin«j^ dens. Two
of tlic lowest order, standin«»' side by side, w(;re
' The Rose of Paradise ' and ' The iNew World.'
In biddini^' adieu to one of my friends the con-
versation turned on Professor Jjryce's book, he

' ' i

4 1

m 1

: ! m

I i 1 1

Mil

' 1 HI

'ill ■

230

TIFLIS.

■ 'i \

\}\

:|!l' I

:!:l

.!! /

having met the author when in Tifiis. He assured
nie that, in spite of all he could say, no one would
credit that the Professor had really achieved the
ascent of Ararat, so deep-rooted is the belief in
the Caucasus that Ararat cannot be climbed, and
so utterly unable are these people to judge of the
value of an Englishman's word. I was struck
by the remark, because Professor Bryce says in his
book that none of the natives believ^e that Parrot
or Abich ever ascended Ararat, and it seemed sin-
gular that he, too, should share their fate.

During the last day or two I had secured the
services of a Pole, an ex-keeper of the Grand Duke's,
who was also a kind of assistant bird-stuhor at the
Tifiis Museum. Late on the evening of my last
day he turned up, with a little bundle of necessaries
in a pocket-handkerchief, and, having handed over
to him a five-barrelled revolving rifle on the prin-
ciple of Colt's revolvers, which I had bought for
a mere song, he and I lay down to rest on beds
for the last time for many weeks. That rifle, by
the way, turned out an excellently accurate fire-
arm, the only weapon made on the revolving prin-
ciple that I ever met with of which so mucli
could be said.

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

211

'I if

CHAPTER XL

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

Start from Tiflis — My yemstchik — Travelling-carts — Caucasian road-
makers — Camel caravans — On the bleak steppe — Persian hawking
— Subterranean dwellings — Shooting at Kariur — Elizabetpol —
An execrable journey — tiawks and starling — Banditti — Curing
official corruption ah Tiflis— Goktchai — A wearying day's sport —
Fea • of highwaymen — My guide, AUai — Arrival at Gerdaoul—
Hospitable Lesghians.

On Saturday morning, December 14, before the
first team cf sleepy buffaloes had dragged their
load of country produce through the streets to the
bazaar, before the canine concert which makes the
night of Tiflis hideous had calmed down, Ivan
had returned from a last farewell to his young wife,
and I had put the last thing ready for a start.
Early as it was, my friend Lyall and his son were
up and ready to speed the parting guest they had
welcomed so kindly, and before six o'clock the
clatterinsf of their horses and the rattle of

wheels

colon

were
Dawn was

my
wakino; the echoes of the German

breaking slowly as we dashed
over the bridge that spans the Kur where it passes
throuii'h the Tjirtar bazaar. The hills w^ere
standing out black and clearly defined against low,

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/^iV ROUTE FOR DAGllESTAN.

fleecy clouds, the golden colour of an l^^nglisli lassie's
hair, while here and there a higher peak caught the
bright red glow of the morning.

Our yemstchik had been taking [)art in a sister's
wedding the day before, and, as ]jc himself said,
was devoting himself to getting rid of the headache
consequent on the marriage festivities. J lis remedy
was the old-fashioned ' hair of the dog that bit
him.' ]^ut, luckily for travellers in Russia, a
3'emstchik never drives so well as when drunk,
so our 'troika' whirled and bumped through tlie
streets, now rapidly filling with their early-rising
denizens, in grand style. In and out amongst
countless hiijrh-wheeled arbas, swearinjj, shoutin"',
screaming, just grazing one vehicle, slashing the
sleepy or sluggish owner of another with Parthian
Avhip, chaffing, chaffed, or cheered, we bowled along
at a gallop. How we did not rini over foot-pas-
sengers or smash some other conveyance I can't
understand, for these yemstchiks turn the sharpest
corners at full speed, and ap[)iu*ently reck nothing
of life or limb.

Just as we were clearino; the bazaar, our kind
escort trying, though mounted, in vain to keej) pace
^vith us, we met a caravan of the long-eared beast
the Brighton cockney loves. Our yemstchik gave
a yell, the donkeys stolidly refused to budge, and
then followed one of the most brilliant charges on
record. The enemy, hampered by the huge packs

packs

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

233

wliicli they boro, reeUul and j^ave way before our
chariot's furious course, and though a torrent of
abuse, no doubt, fuUowed us, the o\vn<n's of tlie
charged ones were too tjiken aback by tlie sudden
onset even to make their re})roaches rea(!]i our
rapidly retreating ears.

J')efore leaving the town wc met a party of musi-
cians cominff from tlie niuht s d(!bauch which here
follows every wedding. I'hese greeted tis with
nnisical hononrs, and altogether our de})arture from
Tifliswas considered lull of haj)py omens. As for
me, ha])py or nnhnppy omens wen? much a matter
of indifference, for, longing as I did for the chase
from which I had been so long debarred by trivial
difficulties at Tifiis, I was only full of delight at
my tardy freedom.

At the first station on tin; road we changed
horses and drank the stirru]i-(Mip. said good-})y
to our friends, and settl^Ml down to the senous
business of travel. To those wlio have never
travelled in Russia ])y the oivliMary (I'avclling-
cart it is impossible to give an ad< <jii:ite iiica of
the miseries the shallow springless carts occasion
to their occu})ants as they jolt over the uneven
track that is here dignilied by the title of post-
road. The traveller's luggage probably tills the
cart, and on this, with knees drawn n]». ' has
to balance himself as well as he can, and con-
tinually exercise all the prehensile powers he

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EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

possesses to retain his precarious position. Many
natives never get used to this method of travel-
ling, and suffer a species of mal de mer from the
jolting, as well as other inconveniences. But for
myself, I had done a gooil deal of travelling in
post-carts, and except for the want of shelter in
bad weather minded it /ery little, being even
able to sleep as we drove, although how I ever
retained my seat whilst so doing I could never
understand.

At the first station from Tiflis we saw beside
the Kiir a large congregation of vultures gathered
round some carcase which the river had deposited
on its banks. Amongst them was one large black
vulture, a very rare bird, 'vhich I in vain
endeavoured to stalk and secure.

After leaving the station of the vultures we
drove day and night, sleeping in the cart when-
ever nature asserted her need of rest, through a
plain bounded on the right by mountains, and on
the left by a scanty line of trees, which marks the
course of the Kilr. All along the route road
repairs were going on, bringing together gangs of
the most villanous -looking scoundrels the various
nationalities of the Caucasus can produce. I take
it, many of the highway murders and other out-
rages one hears of may fiiirly be ascribed to
them. Strings of camels, with solemn tinkling
bells, which seemed to stretch from us to the

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

235

vain

distant horizon, moved mechanically onwards as we
passed them, their phnned howdah sticks nodding
in time to that slow soft stride, which from its
even regularity always impressed me with an
idea of perpetual motion. Several times, too,
towards evening wo came upon large camps near
a pool of water, where some hundreds of camels
were resting, their huge forms making, as tliey
knelt in line, a four-sided fort, within the walls
of which were stored the bales they had brought
out of the distant East. Amoni»:st these lar^'e
camps I noticed a few of those white dromedaries
which travellers tell us are so much prized for
their speed in the East. Save for these camel
caravans, of which we met two or three a day,
all bound for Tiflis, a few minor trains of don-
keys laCen with charcoal, or slow-going fourgons
tilled with the carpets of Shusha and Shemakha,
our lirst two days' journey was most unin-
teresting. Dead bare steppe tuid barren bleak
hillside, with nothing more inspiriting than an
apparently deserted Tartar cemetery to break the
monotony, with I^s tall unhewn headstones of
white rock. Here find there, as the evenini>: orew
into night, the road wound through low hills of
such a withered and blasted look that you felt
that the memorial stones, which you |)assed from
time to time in dark silent places, were sufHciently
siio'u'estive of murder and evil deeds without

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EA' ROUTE FOR DAG HE STAN.

Ivan's gli«astly narratives. Up to the lar<Te station
of Akstaplia, where several <lifFerent routes branch
off from the main road between Tiflis and She-
maklia, we met or passed other travellers by
tarantasse occasionally.

Once we had left Akstaplia, we appeared to
be th( only travellers on the road. About three
stations from Elizabetpol we came across the
lirst s[ecimen of Persian htiwking which I had
yet seen. The bird used was a larg'e falcon,
belled and jessed, as far as I could tell from a
distance, much as an Enij^lish bird mii^ht be if
Englishmen still followed the pursuit of falconry.
Wherever I came across a l^ersian dwelling be-
tween Tiflis and the Caspian, I invariably found
the hawk on his perch by the doorway, and his
two comrades in the chase — tall, broken-haired
greyhounds — basking somewhere near him. These
dogs work with the hawk, run down hares when
started, and put up partridges and ' tooratsh ' (sand-
grouse) for the hawk to strike. To these dwellers
upon the steppe greyhounds and hawk supply
the place of a fowling-piece — an instrument of
destruction little used by Tartars and Persians,
Each man carries a rifle, an enormously long
weapon with a diminutive stock, not nearly as
big round as a man's wrist, with a flint lock,
and a back and fore sight, with a small hole in
each through which the sportsman peers at his

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

237

game. Once you can get a view of the antelope
through these two sights simultaneously, you are
pretty sure to hit him ; but the rifle requires a
great deal of manipulation (sticks arr{inged for a
rest, &c.) before this desirable resvdt can be
attained ; and in the meanwhile it is hardly fair
to expect your quarry to remain motionless.
Moreover, a puff of wind or a drop of moisture
will ensure a missftre, i;nd altogether the antelope
is very fairly safe.

After passing the Red Bridge — a place famous
for many a daring deed of highway robbery — we
passed a subterranean village, or what was prac-
tically one, the roofs being almost on a level with
the ground. Below these roofs are in most in-
stances stables, in which dark and ill -ventilated
dens man and horse live together. Tlie atmo-
sphere is worse than a London fog in the East
End, and the only reason that these dwellings do
not kill those who live in them is that Tartar and
steed piiss at least eighteen hours of the twenty-
four in he pure air of the outside world. Herein
lies the secret of the healthy lives and iron muscles
of all Nature's happily uncivilised children. Their
houses, it is true, are not sucli as would meet with
the full ajiproval of a sanitary inspector of the
nineteenth century ; but then, they look upon them
as the bear looks on his den — only as a place to
retire to for sleep, or to lie down in when sick or

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EN ROUTE FOR DAG H EST AN.

wounded. Windows .ire to tbem works of super-
erogation. When they come back to their houses
it is only because it is too dark to work or play
outside ; and never mornino- sun wastes his life
shedding glory on windows which, with frowsy
blinds, shut in sloth as they shut out daylight. It
often seemed to me that if these half-civilised people
only loved pure Avater as they love the fresh air,
they miglit live to any length of days. But, alas,
they don't. A cold tub never occurs to them,
unless it comes accidentally in fording a mountain
stream, or, contrary to their expectations, as a
shower-bath from heaven.

At Kariur, the last station before Elizabetpol,
I stayed for a little rest and sport, to break the
monotony of our uneasy drive. Kariur is as bad
a station as any one could wish to see — horses and
men living, for the most part, together. But it
looked a likely place for game ; and, indeed, its
looks did not belie it. Never in the best preserved
parks and woodlands of old England have I seen
more hares. They rose and scudded away in all
directions, at every stride. Sand-grouse were plenti-
ful, but extremely difficult to flush ; although when
flushed I thought them very pretty shooting, and
when shot very fine for the table. The meat is
the whitest of any fowl I know. Bustards we saw,
and wild ducks ; for the country seemed full of
tiny purling streams, which should make agri-

EN ROUTE FOR D AG H EST AN.

239

agri-

culture easy and profitable, though these natural
advantages are not utilised here. Antelopes were
tolerably numerous ; and, two or three times, large
grey foxes went away in tluit insolently easy canter
peculiar to lieynard when the hounds are not behind
him. For nearly a quarter of an hoiu' I tried in
vain to stalk a flock of very large reddish birds
with a decidedly game look and a shrill pipe, not
altogether unlike the curlcv's cdl. What they
were I could not find out, as they were extremely
shy, and I never saw any like them again. The
Tartars did not know them any more than did my
Tiflis gamekeeper, and I much regretted that I was
unable to procure a specimen. Kariur would be
a splendid place to pitch your tent near, if you
wanted to thoroughly sate your appetite for fowling,
and vary your experiences with the shot-gun by a
day or two spent in antelope-stalking with the rifle ;
or, in wet weather, when the soil cakes on the
flying feet of the antelope, you might join the
Tartars in a capital gallop after the greyhounds,
with a certainty of a venison supper at the finish.

But much shooting, especially of the antelopes,
would, 1 saw at once, cause great jealousy and
unpleasantness amongst your few neighbours ; so,
having had a capital day, crowned by a varied bag,
and, thanks to Ivan's skill, a savoury supper, I
drove off* in the dark to finish my last stage to
Gungha, as the natives call Elizabetpol. If any

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F.X ROUTE FOR PAG If /.ST AX.

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Knt^lishnian slioiild read wliat I have written, ;iii(l,
tonijited by hope of sport, follow in my track, let
him take one ])iece of advice from me. Never
believe any one between the i^laek Sea and the
Caspian ; or, at least, no\QY build any ho]>es on
allurini;' pros[)ec(s su^^ested to your mind by the
statements of natives. To me Gnnoha was to be a
land of perfect ])ea(!e, where in a really <(ood hotel
T should lay down my weary limbs, and, after a
ij^ood supper, for<^et, in clean sheets, the injuries
inflicted on me by the merciless bumpin<^s of my
travelling-cart. J admit that the vision of clean
sheets seemed far too j^ood \o be true, but when I
found that the occupant of the best inn's best room
could not even get a samovar until the host's
family had finished with it, and no better bed than
the floor and his bourka would constitute, I felt,
indeed, the vanity of all human hopes.

Gunoha is a much better name for the town
than Klizabetpol. It has a thoroughly Asiatic
sound, as the town has a thoroughly Asiatic aspect :
flat-topped houses, thrown pell-mell together, with-
out design or reason in their arrangement ; roads
that are destitute of trottoirs, full of pitfalls and
rocks by turns ; at one time dark wildernesses of
blinding dust-storms, at another hopeless morasses,
in which you sink knee-deep in nmd ; open sewers
by every roadside, and a sufficient quantity of
trees scattered throughout to insure fever in its

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

241

(hie season ; not one decent house in the town,
and notliin<i; eitlier of art or nature to attract the
tniveller, or detain hirn wlien there. There is a
large bazaar, under a kind of arcade, coniposed of a
suc(!ession of dome- like roofs ; here Persian work,
hanhskins, and dricul fruit form the staple commo-
dities. Under one dome the ])oot-makers were
busy ; in the next your measure was taken, and
a sheepskin turban of any hue or shape made for
you whilst you waited. Outside, at the street
cf)rner, an itinerant barber was sliaving the head of
a true believer, whose tray of gaudy sweetstuff lay
on the ground beside him whilst he submitted to
the operation. In the square, near the hotel, a
Persian, with his beard and heavy moustache
ablaze with henna, was, with bell and voice, adver-
tising the merits of a falcon which he carried on
his wrist, whose broad bright eyes were hardly
less wild than his own. The man jind bird would
have been a fine study for an artist's pencil, so
wild and picturesque were they ; and, as the bird
huddled itself into his open shirt front, against his
copper-coloured chest, or struck out with beak and
claw from its perch at the incautious hand of any
Avould-be purchaser, I felt sure that the Persian's
pleasure in accepting a good roimd sum would not
be unalloyed by pain at parting from his brave
bird. But neither my man nor myself cared to
stay longer at G ungha than we were obliged ; and,

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EN ROUTE FOR D AG H EST AN.

a8 soon as horscis could be procured, we were
under way again.

The roads of the Caucasus are always execrable,
but there is still a degree of evil of which that
traveller knows nothing who has not travelled
from Gungha to the next station. The only thing
the road can be compared to is the dry bed of a
mountain cataract. Huge boulders strew the path
incessantly, .ind the arms of the miserable passen-
ger over it are continually almost wrenched from
their sockets by the leaps and bounds of the post-
cart, for it is almost needless to say that nothing
but a determined grasp of your seat will ensure
fixity of tenure for a moment. Across the road
at intervals we came upon the beds of those streams
whose winter fury had so bestrewn the road with
souvenirs of the mountain homes from which they
sprung ; while right and left of us frequent corn-
fields showed by their springing crop that the
mountain stream broufjht ""ood as well as evil in
its train.

After the second station from our last start-
ing-point, the view became really beautiful. The
stony steppe grew narrower, and on either side
high mountain ranges showed themselves, snow-
capped and bright in the clear atmosphere of what
was quite an autumnal morning, though we were
now well into December. These distant peaks were
those of Shusha and Lesghia respectively.

EN ROUTE EOR DAGHESJAX.

343

we were

!S, snow-

Eveiy now nnd then the sand-grouse would
tempt nie to eall a lialt ; but though the place in
which they pitched was marked ever so carefully
and beaten as closely as tnen could beat it, we
found it quite iin[)ossible to flush the birds without
the assistance of a <log. As the light failed, we
snw phalanx after phalanx of starlings wheeling,
extending, and re-iuiissing themselves in the dusky
skies ; and as we drew near the reed-beds, towards
which their flight tended, we became witnesses
of a piece of very interesting bird-life. Near
the reed-beds were several trees, sny half-a-dozen,
and as they were })are of leaves, we could see
on every tree some two or three hawks. As the
starlings swept down with rushing wings to their
nightly abiding-place, the hawks would glide from
their perches, and swooping amongst them, break
and turn the advancing host. Quick as the ma-
rauders were, the stii'^'ngs did not seem to fare
half so badly as might have been expected, and at
last all the wanderers were at rest in their reedy
home except one small band which, arriving later
than the rest, had been terribly harried by the
hawks, and seemed almost to have given up all
hope of getting safe home. On a tree some dis-
tance from the reeds, halfway between the ground
and the highest branch, sat in silent state, or
gorged apathy, a splendid specimen of the king
of birds. Chivied perpetually by the hawks, and

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EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

fairly scared out of their wit^^ the little band of
starlings swept round this desert throne, and
finally settled in a hlack throng all round the
mighty bird himself To our astonishment he
took no notice, never moving a feather ; and there
we left them, the hawks baffled and afraid to ap-
proach the starlings' sanctuary, and the weary
birds too tired to try again for their reed -bed, too
scared to Uiiud the monarch in their midst.

At one station we met a party of peasants who
had been carrying soldiers' kits from one village
to another, and on their return had been stopped,
beaten, and robbed of their wretched little earnings
by highwaymen. At another we met an Armenian
merchant with a ' tchapar,' or armed courier, who
was so abominjibly insolent to me that I was
obliged to give him an excessively rough shaking,
Avhich cowed him considerably ; juid on the appear-
ance of my servant, who explained to tlie post-
master who I was, the fellow became as servile as,
oAving to my old coat, he had previously been inso-
lent. Here, too, we heard of highwaymen, the
post- station having been robbed of some horses,
which the postmaster had been lucky enough to
recover. The thieves had been caught, but I was
assured that would matter little to them, as a
trifling tip would set matters right with the local
authorities, and they woidd soon be in a fair way
to recoup themselves for their losses.

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

245

Later on, we met two of these gentry on the
road, armed to the teeth and well mounted ; but
though they honoured us with a careful scrutiny,
our gleaming gun-barrels had a deterrent effect
upon them, and we drove on unmolested, though
our driver suffered a shock to his nervous system
which quite upset his merriment for the rest of the
drive. I am told that amono-st these Tartar hi"h-
waymen revolvers are quite common nowadays,
most of them possessing at least one of these
dangerous little tools.

The conversation turnino' on the laAvlessness of
the Caucasus, elicited from my servant a strange on
dit of Tiflis. So utterly corrupt had Qxevy branch
of the civil service in the Caucasus become some
three months previous to u\j arrival therein, that

the Emperor sent down his secret agent, K ,

with orders to inspect the state i)i affairs in dis-
guise, with plenary ])owers of dismissal and punish-
ment with reo'ard to civil otlicials. He was to
clean the Augean stable of Tiflis. Su[)})orted by
a band of detectives brought with him from St.
Petersburg, he soon became the terror of the town.
Common rumour had it that three of the wor>;t
in high places died of sheer fright shortly after his
advent. This may not have been the cause of their
deaths, probal)ly was not, but that they were lucky
enough thus to escape punishment by natural deaths
is historical. One of K 's first acts was to try

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the police. Disguised as moujiks, lie and his men
went bullying and swaggering througli the streets,
apparently drunk as lords. The diflieulty was to
got taken up, but after some time tliey managed to
accomplish even that, and were hauled away to the

police-station. Here K and his men tried to

get off' by apologies and excuses, which were natu-
rally vain. Then, turning to his men, he said,
' Hey brothers, suppose we give the good chief of
police a rouble apiece ; lie will '^ee then that we
good Christians cannot be drunk.' The roubles
were paid, the liberty of the pseudo-moujiks ob-
tained, and next <lay K came down and dis-
missed the chief of police and his whole staff. So
through every branch of civic administration, meet-
ing with hindrances at every step, but still stead-
fastly hunting down corruption wherever he sus-
pected it. Three generals holding civic posts he
forced into retirement ; then, feeling that the oppo-
sition ol' the military in a town still under military

law was too much for him, K retired.

But now a bitter white mist comes cree])ing
over the earth, wetting us to the skin in spite of our
heavy wra])s, and sto])ping all c(;nversation by the
chill discomfort it brings in its train ; so foi* thnn'
hours we lie down to rest at the next post-station,
risinii' ai^ain at seven to welcome as briu'ht a moi'n-
ing as any 1 had seen on my long drive. The
country was pretty, with here and there a group

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EN ROUTE FOR D ACHES TAN.

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liis men
streets,
was to
laged to
y to the
tried to
re iiiitu-
he said,
chief of
that we
roul)les
jiks ob-
iiid dis-
EifF. So
n, meet-
1 stead-
he siis-
osts lie
e oppo-
iiihtary

reepiii<^-

of our

by tlic

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station,

. Hiorn-

Tl.e

group

of trees, and here and there a brook. The sun
was briglit in the heavens, the hoar frost s})arkled
on the ground, while every breatli of the keen
morning breeze brouglit high spirits and a hunter's
appetite along with it. The country now became
hilly, even close by the post-road, and every now
and then we saw a covey of red-legged partridges
scudding up the bare hillsides at a terrible pace.
These birds seemed to have taken the place of the
sand-grouse now. A drive of twenty versts from
Adji Kabool brought us to Goktchai, and here my
])Ost-cart was destined to stay its joltings and bid
its jangling bells be still for some little time.

Goktchai is a large village, with one broad
main street, beginning at the I'iflis end in a bazaar,
passing halfway some bfir racks, where a few soldiers
are quiu'tered, and ending in the ordinary Cauca-
sian village. On the way through the village
bazaar my eyes rested on a freshly slain tur, or
mountain sheep, as well as other game ; and the
sio^ht of the noble head with its irrand liorns, coui-
bined with a distant view of those peaks whence
it had so lately come, was too much for my powers
of resistance, and I detefmined then and there that
I too would at least try to kill a tur in the wild
mountains of Daghestan.

At the post-station 1 heard the most glowing
accounts of the quantities of game to be met with
within two days' ride of the village ; but coupled

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M !

with this came the news that these mountains
were so ill-famed on account of the brigands who
haunted them that scarcely any of the villagers
had ever been there, and none would go again for
any wage I liked to offer. This I received doubt-
fully, and through my man made many offers, but
even ten roubles a day were refused by moujiks to
whom a hundred roubles would liave been a for-
tune with which to rest content for life. However,
though I began to believe in tlie reality of the
brigands, more especially as a post-cart had during
the last few days been carried off bodily in broad
daylight, I determined to wait a day and see
whether no one would come to accept my liberal
offer.

The day of waiting was spent in shooting
hares and red-legs on the nearest hills, whose steep
sides were simply alive with these swift-footed
birds, running like flies on tlie almost perpendicular
faces of the cliffs, or coming like bullets overhead
as my man drove them to me. The difficulty of
approaching the birds — as, though continually in
sight, they would never rise and never stop running
— reminded me of other days over the stiff furrows
of Northamptonshire ; though, even witli the helj)
of a sturdy Tartar, I found the bare rocks and
mud-faced crumblino; hillsides worse "^oinjj: than
the wet ridge and furrow. Tlie hills were covered
with dwarf larch and pomegranate-trees, the fruit

EX ROVrE EOR DAGHESTAN.

249

Lintains
ds who
illagers
yain for

doubt-
ers, but
Lijiks to
n a for-
owever,

of the

during
1 broad
iiid see

liberal

hooting

se steep

t- footed

idicular

verhead

culty of

lally in

•unnins^

furrows

lie hel})

ks and

<r than

covered

le fruit

of the latter having, alas, been all culled for this
year.

Tired and thirsty, towards three o'clock we saw
hanging over a steep cliff above us a large })onie-
granate-tree, apparently unrobbed as yet. Its
bright fruit showed red and yellow through the
foliage; so with renewed energy niy Tartar and
I struggled for a quarter of an hour to reach it.
At last we succeeded, and found, to our intense
disgust, tluit each fruit was hollow, a part of the
opposite side having been broken away and all the
interior taken out by the birds, who had left
nothing but the delusive husks which had so
cruelly disappointed us. I record this as one of
many similar sells inflicted on us whilst in
Daghestan.

When we started in })ur,suit of the reddegs we
had with us a do<r, but so hard was tlie work that
in about three hour^ the poor beast refused to come
another yard, and hiy down resolutely to )*est.
His exaun)le was infectious, and though AVe kept
on for some time longer, we were soon so heartily
tired of the goatdike manner of progression neces-
sary in these hills, and the perpetual motion of the
partridges, that we gave uj) the chase and came
home. There we found j'ood news awaitinu' us.
One of the Lcsghian Tartars, who lived in the
second range of mountains from (roktchai, had
come in during the day to bring some game to the

:ll

i' \

250

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

! I

bazaar, an J, hearing of us, volunteered to guide us
to the home of the tur and the chamois for a much
smaller sum than that which I had vainly offered
to the Russian moujiks. Allai, as he was called,
was a man about 6 feet 3 inches in hei jiit, hard
and wiry in build, who unfortunately spoke no
single word of any other language than his own
Lesghian Tartar. The ' starost ' (elder) warned
me to beware of him, for, in spite of his gentle
ways and guileless manner, Allai was suspected of
knowing a great deal more of the brigands than
Avas exactly to his credit. Still, brigand or not,
it mattered very little to me, as Allai was evidently
tlie only man who could serve my purpose, and I
fancied I saw my way to securing myself and
servant from any outrage wlr li our guide could
prevent. My plan was simply to arrange witli him
that for his and his brother's services, too'ether with
the use of two horses for the first day, or for as far
as travelling on horseback slioidd be practicable, I
was to pay him a certain suni, which sum, together
with all my other valuables, having been safely
deposited with a friend in the village, would only
become his on my safe return from my trip. This
agreement, together with the precaution of letting
the Russian military authorities quartered in the
village know whither I was bound, made me feel
tolerably safe, even sJiould Allai be head and chief
of all the brigands from the Black Sea to the

EN ROUTE FOR DACIIESTAN.

the

feel

chief

the

Caspiiin, and so, in spite of all the evil predictions
of the ' starost ' and his friends, my man and I, ■vrith
AUai and his brotlier, set our faces to the blue
mountains and joj^ged riglit merrily on our way
next morning.

Our first resting-place was to b ' the Armenian
mountain village of Gerdaoul. The road was
beautiful in the extreme, though it required much
beauty to make amends for its roughness. The
greater part of the way our course lay over the
bare bed of a mountain torrent, whose tortuous
windings were everywhere full of great boulders,
over which no beast could move at more than a
foot's pace. The hills, for the most part bare, were
boldly broken and ragged in outline ; at the top
were frequent thickets of small firs and pome-
granates, while every here and there small clumps
of the same flecked the white hillsides. After
surmounting this first range of hills, in which
small game seemed to swarm, we came upon a
table-land which separated us from the snow-capped
range wherein our goal lay. On the very edge of
this table-land hangs the village of Gerdaoul. The
faces of the cottages composing it oj>en out of the
hillside ; the roofs, mere white cones, rise out of the
table-land above. Far more imposing to the eye
appear numbers of haystacks, shaped like sugar-
loaves, perched on high wooden scafi'olds to save
them from marauding buffaloes, or to give shelter

25.1

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

to the OAvner's cattle in storms or at night. Here,
when AUai had made known who and what we
were, the village elder came out to welcome me and
bid me to his house, where, near a cheery hearth,
on which the huge logs glowed, cushions and
carpets and slippers invited to repose. Unluckily,
none of the good men of the village spoke a word
of anything but Tartar, of which Ivan knew but
little, and 1 only the words picked up during the
last two days. To the hungry man and the
sportsman a knowledge of the native language is
not, however, an absolute necessity, though it is an
immense advantage. Signs go a long way, and
amongst a race who care for sport as the Lesghian
Tartars do, sympathy for a brother sportsman does
the rest.

It was not long before tea was brought to me,
and as one after another the swarthy villagers
trooped in, 1 soon had quite a large assembly
round me. Each man as he came in gave me a
courteous greeting, and then, crossing his legs or
drawing them up under him, so as to squat on his
heels, he took up a meditative position on the floor.
Amongst themselves i;hey were very tac turn, and
never spoke to me unless I made some remark to
them. When I did, instead of being amused at
my mutilation of their language, they looked grave
and did their best to puzzle out my meaning
amongst them. Jn the course of time a bowl of

[■■::

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

253

scented water w.is brought me by my host, jind,
having washed my liands in it, he and his friends
performed their own ablntions, thougli, their luinds
being all stained brown with some dye in use
amongst them for the purpose, the washing had but
little apparent efl'ect. I noticed that all the Tar-
tars and other inhabitants of Lcsghia dyed their
hands in this manner.

After the bowl had gone its rounds, some game
I had shot, together with one <^f the cliickens of
Gerdaoul and a huge tray of lioiled rice, was
brought in. Everything was handed to me by
the host himself, and his courtesy went so far that
with his brown fingers he dexterously tore the
fowl to pieces, and selecting the best, offered
them to me. These people employed no table
utensils except the silver bowl to wash in and the
silver tray on which fowl, rice, and raisins, fried
in butter, were all served en niasae. Every one
helped himself in turn from the dish with his
fingers, rolling the rice into a neat ball so as to
scarcely drop a grain. Gladly would I have done
the same, but for the first day or two I fancy
more rice went down my neck than down my
throat. The meal was followed by some capital
native wine, at which my Lesghian guide looked
askance, although I found afterwards that his
scruples were not troublesome except in public.

W'M

iii':

254

EN ROUTE FOR D AG H EST AX.

and his taste for stron<if drink only strengthened
by occasional enforced abstinence.

After another ablution the meats were cleared
away and pipes produced, when, to my horror, I
found I had lost my tobacco pouch. How-
ever, lots of tobacco was soon forthcoming, and
next morning a prettily knit purse for the fra-
grant vv^eed, worked in purple and gold by the
nimble fingers of one of the invisible daughters
of the house, was presented to me. Anything
more luxurious than a lounge on the cushion-
covered carpets of Gerdaoul, with a ruddy hearth
fire by your side, the good native wine to drink,
and the best of tobacco > smoke, with a crowd
of picturesquely wild fellows around you, and a
distant view of the mountains through the open
doorway, it has seldom been my lot to enjoy,
and it was far into the night before I could
make up my mind to leave it all for the realms of
sleep.

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

255

CHAPTER XII.

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

Gerdaoul — Shooting partridges — Xative wine-vaults — Expedition
among the hills — Native hoiisea — An inho.spitahle village — A
dangerous ride — A welcome reception — Shepherd-boys — The
Lesghians — Russian love for the Czar — Unsuitable education — ■
Mountain-climbing — Magni6cent scenery — Red deer — Vegetation
— A chamois — A weary descent — A happy people— Photographing
the scenery — A * babou»hka ' — * Developing ' our photographs —
A mountain chalet — The snow peaks — Wild goats and sheep —
Difficult mountaineering — An alluring chase — Suspended over a
precipice — A bleak night's lodging— Mountain turkeys — J31ack
pheasants — Lammergeiers — Advice to travellers — Return to
Goktchai.

The entire population of Gerdaoul is Armenian,
and the village, like most Armenian villages, is a
thriving one. The Armenians are almost as good
colonists as the Germans ; thrifty, sober, hard-
working, and astute, they are invariably better off
than their neighbours, who as invariably call them
thieves, and detest them heartily. In the case of
the Armenians of Gerdaoul I hoped they wronged
them, for I was certainly very hospitably received
and honestly treated there. The women of the
village kept out of our way for the most part,
though we constantly caught glimpses of their

'fi;

f:'l:

i»

: I

111

2i6

7///-: LESaHfAA M0i\7^AL\S.

figures (litt'm^u,' Jil»oiil, l)iisy willi some liousolioM
work, })riiifrlnn^ Ikiiiic tlic cntflc, or «jiri)('t-iiiJikino-.

lU'Kuv }ilnK)st every lioiisi' sttMul ;i Ijir^^v frnnio,
ronstriif'tod .'iftcr the nuiniicr of tlic wool-work
irjmics of I*jii;Iisli ladies, only that it was as lar<j;e
almost as the entire i'aee of Ihe Init. On these,
without any copy to work froni, the Armenian
villagers workiMl those carpets, Avhieh are sold in
Tiflis as l^ersian of a second ((uality, or as
avowedly Armenian, from Sluisha or Shemakha.

There is not unfre(|uently another and a smaller
frame covered with canvas, on which are daubs of
a brilliant colour, standing- in tlu; doorway l)csidc
the carpet frame. This is for quite Jinother pur-
pose, and is the property of the youuf^ men of the
CwStablishment. Armed with this gaudy shield and
his old gun the Armenian fowler Avill procure as
many reddegs as he needs for the pot. The nnuhts
opcnmdi is as follows. A covey of birds having
been found, the man approaches with his shield in
front of him, so that from the first the birds never
see their enemy. When the attention of the covey
has been secured, the gunner stops, and planting
his shield before him, watches the birds through a
loophole in its centre. At first they probably
retire before the strange thing that comes towards
them, but as soon as it stops they stop too. Then
perhaps the shield is gradually drawn back ; as
gradually, with heads craning forward, the birds

THE LF.saniAN MOV NT A I XS.

=57

follow. For sonic time thore is a stni<»«'lc lu'twccii
(•iiriosity Jind i'ciir ; ovcntUMlly curiosity <^ains tlio
day, and tho whole covey conies up to within some
twenty yards of the snare, ea<»'erly talkin*:^ the
matter over amon^^st themselves as they eo»ne. Sud-
denly the L!;unr.er i;ives a shrill whistle : instantly
all thehinis run t'\i'ether ; and in that moment the
charj»(' of shot cuts rhroui»h them, and leaves two.
thirds of their luunher dead on the <:;round. Yet
so foolish are they that, some of the Armenians
told me, unless the gunner showed himself, the
covey would keep reasscnd)ling round the snare
until the last bird was killed. Thus covey after
covey has been destroyed ; and although the red-
legged partridge is as numerous in these hills as
mosquitoes in snmmer, still the Government has
thought lit to pronounce the use of these deadly
engines illegal, and to im])ose a heavy fine for the
use of them. Of course in these hills the law is
a dead letter, and the Armenians will very soon
exterminate the bird that now swarms around
them.

As 1 strolled through the village before con-
tinuing my journey, 1 noticed several large mounds
rising abruptly in the streets, like large ant-hills.
These I found on inquiry were the doors to the
Armenian villaoers' cellars, and beneath each of
them lay buried many a huge red jar of good
native wine. Easy as it would be to open these

\\\

liii

i"l'S

1
li

2s8

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

snr

uiiiTunnUMl vniilts jind abstract the contents, the
wine is perfectly safe, as the comihunity is too
small for theft to escape unnoticed. At the birt^»
of every man child the wealthy Armenian hnys
and buries a, large jar of \vine, and this is not
nnearthed until the son's coming* of age or mar-
riage needs celebration. I should be glad to be
present at one of these feasts, as the wine of the
country only requires to be kept long enough to
render it excellent.

()ur own cellar on the march was all comprised
in 'A. goat's-skin, about the size when full of an
ordinary pillow, with a wooden ni[)ple at one
corner. This for safety's sake I always carried on
my own shoulders, and used for n pillow at night.

Having rehlled this portable celhu' and thanked
our hosts, we resumed our ride across the table-
land to the liills beyond. Tlie dav was December
18, the air brisk and fresh, with scarcely any frost
in it — so mild indeed that during tlie ride I noticed
several clouded yelh)w and small copper butterflies.
The only life on this table-land seemed to be that of
hawks and hooded crows, Avhich were in great force.
Duels between kestrels and crows recurred con-
tinually, and to my surprise the crow generally had
the best of it. Once 1 came upon a grand specimen
of the falcon, and rode as near as I could to the
place where he was sitting, to get a shot at him,
hoping to add him to my collection of 1)irds. To

i;!i

i(!l

THE LESGHTAN MOUNTAINS.

J59

my .surprise he let me come within ji dozen yards
of him, and then wlieeling" slowly up, pitched some
two hundred yji'ds further oft". I followed him :
a_2;ain he w.Mited, letting me couie much closer hefore
he got up, and flyin^^* only a i^.w yards l)efore comini^
down .again. Thi« time when I approached him he
had evidently turned sulky, and ahsolutely refused
tol)udne until I struck at liim with my whip, wlien
he slowly moved away witli a dead quail still
in his talons. I couli not hel]) admiring his sullen
pluck, so I left him to finish his dinner in peace.

Once out of the plain, the whole scene changed.
This second rano;e was one of ji'enuinc mountains,
well wooded, full of loud-voiced rushing torrents,
tall columns of white mist, and hoary trees, from
which the beard moss huug in grey festoons. In
front of us the lords of Daghestan raised thcMr
glistening white crowns, so close as almost to seem
to overshadow us. After riding some miles alor\g
the sid«^' of one of these watercourses, we came in
the afternoon to a Tartar village, famous for its
silk. Here on all sides were fine orchards, magni-
ficent walnut trees, and endless rows of mulberries,
on the leaves of which the silk-worms are fed. The
houses were of a different character to those by the
post-road and in the ])lain. No more mud huts,
but rjither chalets, the lower half of composition
(mud and stone) and the toj) story of beam and
wattle, covered by a wooden or thatched roof. As

'fpr^

i'i

260

T//E LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

we rode through tlie main street, women drew up
their white wrappings round their eyes, and scut-
t]e<l away like rabbits as you pass through their
warren. On the outskirts of tlie viUage was a Large
graveyard full of tall trees and grey ohl stones, on
which the shadows fell ; while through the half
light a woman, in the white robe peculiar to her
people, recalled a hundred and one ghost stories,
which hiid frightened me into good behaviour as a
child.

elust outside the village I shot a line grey
squirrel, the first squirrel I have seen in the
Caucasus, where their skins are uiucli prized, the
furriers of Tiflis demanding as much as one rouble
seventy-five copecks for such a skin as the one I
secured. As the lio-ht failed, and we were beo-innin";
to feel the corners and inequalities in our saddles in
a way that told us plainly how tired we were get-
ting, another village came in sight ; and here we
decided to rest, though Allai did not by any means
approve of the suggestion. On asking for food we
were politely cursed to our faces ; and when at last,
in the middle of the bazaar, we found a ' duclian '
(inn), it was of so uninviting an aspect that a good
appetite was necessary to tempt a traveller inside
it. Under a wide awning was a room open on
three sides to within some four feet of the ground,
rnd inside this enclosure was a kind of dresser
sloping gradually from the back wall of the place

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

261

to the window ledge. On this the cnstoniers sat,
whilst below them and beside them the cooking of
' sushliks ' went on. As soon as we were inside and
seated, a host of the worst-lookin"' scoundrels I ever

' to

saw swarmed round the place, to stare at and make
remarks upon us. Never were the lions in the Zoo
more eagerly and impertinently watched at feeding
time than were we, and certainly never by such an
ill-looking set as the owners of the shifting eyes
and high cheek-bones who suri^ed round us. The
faces were worthy of a C^hinese illustration of hell,
and I know of nothing else to which to com])are
them. In their anxiety to get a good look at us,
they even broke down the wooden walls of the house.
All the time their tongues were busy, and from the
way in which they constantly spat and gesticulated,
their remarks could hardly have been favourable to
us. Unwisely I liel[)ed myself from my goatskin,
which gave great oU'ence to the crowd, and evil
and angry were the looks cast upon us ; so that f felt
that if they could but know that it was pork that
filled out the sides of my saddle-bags, my fate
would have been an un{)leasant one. My man at
this juncture lost his tem[)er, and becan\e abusive to
a liook-nosed individual who had for some time
past been peering down his throat. All I could do
Aras of no avail ; Ivan woiiM not be |)a('itied, and
so angry did the ever-increasing crowd become that
1 was not at all surprised when a messenger arrived

''i -\X'.

ii.Sif.

262

THE LESGHIAN MOUMTAINS.

from the village governor or elder, warning us that
we mast on no nccount dream of passing the night
in the village, for that although he had every desire
to protect us, the people were beyond his control,
and we should inevitably get oiu* throats cut. So,
though the clouds were gathering black, and the
evening drawing in apace, we left the ' duchan,' and
went forward farther and farther into the shadows
of the mountains, leaving behind an angry mur-
muring crowd that for one rash act would h ive
worried us as terriers worry rats.

And now, as we trudged wearily up the pjiss,
AUai rode up to me, and, with many ejaculations,
besought me not only to ride with my gun at the
ready, but the moment I caught a glimpse of a
man behind either bush or boulder to lire at him
hrst, and ask questions after. His fear was that
some of the rascals of the village we had just left
would get on ahead, form an junbuscade, and fire
upon us as we approached. He himself was evi-
dently determined to use his gun whenever he got
a chance ; and, in spite of all I could si»y, made us
all uncomfortable by his nervousness throughout
the journey ; the more so, as we had opportunities
of seeing that in most things Allai was as hard}'
as other men. All things have an end — even tlic
windings ol'a mountain torrent ; and \\\. Iiisf. wlieu
our limbs were aching with liitigue, a tiny haiidet \\\
the deepest recess of that sliadcjwy r.ivine cheered

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

26'

US with the hope of rest and refreshment. Two
more minutes spent in warding ott* the tittacks of
a chimorous host of dogs ; then a door opens, a
flaming brand is held uj), a swarthy face peers into
the equally dusky countenance of our guide, and
amid many greetings, we are ushered into the one-
roomed cottage of a Lcsghian Tartar s]iej)herd.

Cushions and caq)ets were soon arranged l)y the
hearth, slippers being brought forme ; and then tlie
hospitable j'ood felioAvs set to work to serve us
with their best. h\ the room were but few sig-ns
of civilisation — nothing, in fact, that would have
been strange in the tents of the Ishmaelites of old.
The men were rough and tanned to a copper-
colour by the winds and weather of their wild
mountain home. Their clothes were rough and
ragged, and they wen? all armed to the teeth,
never laying their kinjals aside from sunrise to
sunrise ; but their eyes were broad h<jnest eyes,
that looked the stranger steadily in the face ; their
manner to me was deferential as to an honoured
guest, but perfectly self-possessed and confident.

Th<' women of the house had retired on 4Hur
entry, and for the whole of our sojourn with these
j)eople, they remained in a kind of outbuild-
iuiT attached to tlic C()tta<i:e, vouchsatiniJ' us only a
rare glimpse of t\S'() very pretty faces, v.hioli ^ere
lost to sight in the folds of their envious mulilers
almost before they were seen. After the chicken

■■\\\\

1 1

' ! I -i

!64

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

and rice had been cleared away, two little Jjes«rliian
boys came in to liave a look at their father's
guests ; and never in my life have 1 seen such
sturdy, handsome youngsters as these two sun-
browned little shepherds of seven and eight re-
spectively. Early in the morning, before the sun
had risen, these two young mountaineers were
astir, waked by the bell of Shaitan, the long-
bearded chief of their herd of goats. With crooks
in hand, in rough togas of sheepskin, I Avatclied
the line little fellows leadini]^ their hundred or more
goats up steep mountain tracks, to pastures that
hung far above the hamlet in the glen ; and often
during the day we caught glimpses of them and
their charge on some precipitous pasture, or heard
the distant notes of the rou<»;h flutes with wdiich
they amused themselves.

With such early training as this — taught at
seven to *'ely on their own resources, and take
charge of such wilful beasts as goats on a mountain
pasture — it is small wonder that Lesgliians have
numbered amongst them such leaders as Scliamyl
and Mansur I^)ey. Nor is it wonderful that, passing
year after year of their lives in the solitary grandeur
of their own mountains, they become the priest-le((,
superstitious people tli( y are. ISchamyl the; k-adcr
would have had but littk; influence liad lie not also
been Schamyl the ])r<)})het, tlie diviuel}- prot(>rle(l.
J have frequently heard Ivussiaus say that the only

THE LESGIIIAN iMOUNTAL\S.

2bS

father's
11 sucli
o sun-
)ht ro-
he sun
s were
3 loni»-

crooks
^'utclicd
)r more
es til fit
id often
mi and
r heard

Avhieh

iglit at
id take
Jim tain
IS have
cliamyl
lasshiii,"
■aiideiir
est- led.
leader
io( also
Jteetrd.
w. only

reason that the Circassian war lasted as hmu; as it
(Ud was, that it was the policy of Ilussia to keep
the Caucasus as a training school for her young
officers and raw recruits ; but, though this has
been often repeated ])y men who were in a position
to know soiiietliini»' of the matter, I wouhl rather
believe that the fiery zeal, tougli sinews, and
impracticable mountain homes of the Lesghians
were the cause, tlum the calculating cruelty ol
their enemies, ix! that as it may, the L(!sghians
of to-day — such at least as remain of them — are
an honest race of sturdy mountaineers, who have
little love for Russia, and concern themselves in no
way with the outside world. Those with whom I
stayed never travelled, even as far as Cloktchai,
more than twice a year, and, I daresay, don't
know yet that the Czar Alexander II. is dead, ihit
the evil sj)irit that wrought his shameful murder
was never cherished in a liCsuhian or Tseherkess
bos(Mii, any more than in the breasts oi' his own
Jlnssian moujiks. 1 have known the coiiiinon
people of Ilussia for three or four years, and
known some of them well : for it was I'ver my wont
to put uj; in })easants' huts, and share the moujik's
black bread when out shooting near his village,
and I have never heard anything but love and
respect for the Kii;[)eror from a ])oor man yet.
The moujik and the Tseherkess of to-day are not
as tonu'ue-tied as some would havu-us belie^e ; and

M""

266

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

W \

very few indeed tire the ^reat men of lliissiu whom
they do not detest and abuse ; but the lLm[)eror is
still to them a loving father, in whose tender
mercy — if they could only get at it through the
crowd of oiiicials who fence him round, and hamper
the effects of his just will — the moujik entirely
confides.

Jf those liussians with whom I have talked
on Nihilism knew anything of the su])ject, the
Emperor's great mistake was not the freeing of the
serfs — though by that he aroused the hostility of the
wealthy boyar class — but the reduction of the fees
of the universities to such a degree as to render a
first-rate education possible to thousands who, in
after life, would have to fill positions for which
tliey were too highly educated, and in which their
excessive education would only create discontent.
Is it not just possible that the excessive education
which we force upon the working classes of l"]ngland
at the present time may have a somewhat similar
effect ? I })lead guilty to knowing very little of
politics ; but when I hear on all sides the com-
plaint that domestic servants are becoming an
extinct race, having grown too fine for the state
of life to which (to quote the fine old catechism
phrase) it has pleased God to call them ; when 1
hear of the difficulty of obtaining agricultural
labourers, or old-fashioned country servants ; when
every woman can play the piano, and none can

TIIL LLS(;iUAN MOUNTAINS.

267

cook a ])otjito, I bL'«:;iii to wonder if education may
not be carried too far, and wlietlier certain classes
would not be ]ia])picr without it, and their work
better done. There is jui ohl ada<^e that ' a little
knowled«Tje is a dangerous tliini!^ ; ' and even in
Knu^hnid we cannot pretend to do more tlian i»ive
the workin<^' chisses that 'little knowledoe ' wliieh
produces the ill effects that a perfect education
miji'ht or miiilit not cure.

But these are subjects beyond me, and I escape
gladly to the mountain side. When the first pale
ray of the dawn crept througli the one tiny window
of our ' serai,' we left our couches, and went down
to lave our hands and faces in the icy wati;rs of
the mountain torrent below. Dunnji" the niirht
a slight fall of snow had made the valley white,
and a sharp frost had grizzled the long beiu'd moss
on the mountain trees. We did not stay for break -
fa:bt, but just collected all our impediinenta, deter-
mininji; to do two hours' clind)ini!; before sittiiiu'
down to eat and drink, and fastc^n on those
abominable iron claws, without which the rest of
the climb would be im})ractica1)le.

For one like myself, but little used to moun-
taineering the ^rst two hours' clind) was very
weary Avork ; and when at last we st<)p])ed to rest
and breakfast, the high peaks seemed further off
than ever. Growing close to (he boiddcr round
which we breakfasted was a medlar-trei;. whose

268

THE LKSGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

* r'

luilf frozen fruit was (Icliciously mfrcsliiiio- nfUtr
our toil. But Allai j»iiv(i us little tinu; to rest,
so that having hurried through our mejil, and s})ent
a few minutes in \vatchin<jf the sun battling- liis way
llirough the mountain mists, we fastened on the
elimbing-irons and pursued our way uj) steep
slopes covered with forests of beeches, whose diy
ftdlen leaves scattered from under our feet and
revealed the treacherous bhick ice beneath.

Here we came on bear tracks, and heard the cry
of the red deer in some beech woods on a neigh-
bouring mountain side. As we peered over an abyss
we caught sight of three ' marral,' as the natives call
them, far out of shot on the other side. To get to
them would have been a day's work ; so we could
only look and long; while the wild cry of another
stag, which we could not see, reverberated through
the woods, and nuidc our hearts jump at the
sound. Far down in the abyss the wooded tops
of smaller mountains rose like islands from a tiuu-
bling sea of clouds like those we call woolsacks at
home ; a sea that, as evening approaches, rises higher
and higher, until the whole mountain top is sub-
merged in its cold waves. Hut here above the
clouds, out of sight of the earth which they hid,
all was bright as an Italian summer, in spite of the
snow and ice, until four o'clock in the afternoon.
Here, beautifying the snowy forests by their [u-e-
sence, 1 found two varieties of primula : one, the

rilE LRHGUIAN MOUA'TAIXS.

260

coinnionost, ji (1w|) libic ; tlii^ other, a [)iiro white ;
we also found soirie sweet vioh'ts, wliich, tno-ether
Avitli the ]>riuinhis, nuuh' a handsome hoiujiiet
for Christmas time. The trees in I lie woods we
]>a.ssed throii«^h were ahnost entirely hcech, evcry-
wliere covered with the heard moss, which i;ave
them a (jiiaint old-world look ; amoni^st them were
a few medlars and ])ears ; while underfoot the
hlaekherry hriars made our ii)»ward proiiress dif-
ficult, liracken and ' trichomanes ' were the only
representatives of the fern family wliich 1 noticed
durmi;' the day.

On this our first essay on the mountain-side
we only just reached the upper edge of th(^ w^ooded
helt, and it wa« here, when we had scarcely kift tlie
trees hehind ns, that I ^'ot my only shot durin<j^
the day. Passing' through a small recess in the
mountain-side, where all was still dark and chill, the
sun not havino- penetrated there sinc(! ni^ht left it,
1 heard <a hound and a rustle, and a chamois oave
me a fair runninij^ shot, of which I did not make
the most, only wounding-, and eventually losing
him, after a day wasted in pursuit. So we
turned back sore-footed and emj)ty-lianded, trud«»'-
inji: down the mountain to the risini!; niist waves
that crept up to meet us, and, plunging into them,
felt for a time like men lost in the nii>ht, where
neither the peaks of the mountains above, nor the
fire- of the valley beneath, were visible to us ;

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IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

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Photographic

Sciences

Corporation

33 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, NV. MS 80

(~ \t) «>^2-4S03

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:7o

THE LKSGJ7IAX MOUXTATXS.

wlicre trees took wcinl sliiipcs. like those in Dore's
jtictures ; wliere sill av.'is (kiiik, iirul diirk. nnd chill,
so tliiit a )i;ilf womler ni-e\v upon lis jis to whether
niiy\A'here down henejith .'i hri^lit fire, eiisliioiis, iiixl
coiufort eoiiM Ik; wailing' lor lis.

At last the house fires ulinimered fron) helow
like stiirs throui^h a, ni<4hfc of fo^', nnd hiirryinu; on.
slij)|)in<r and stinnhlinu; over the wet <^Tass, sliding'
off' our <j^reasy leather stoekinu's to hnnip aloni'' for
twenty yards or so on onr aehini»- shoulders, we
reiu'licd our Lesoliian honse, jmd had soon forirotten
(except when the hnteful clamps caught onr eye)
all the ])etty tribulations which had interfered
with our appreciation of the magnificent mountain
scenery.

Thest! Leso'liians lead a happy life, thouu;h (or
perhaps, because) a simple one. A flock of goats
find shepherd's work for the hardy handsome
boys to do. A field of corn just above the house
on a little table-hmci keeps the family in bread. A
tree which m'ows in the crjinnies of the rock, in
appearance like a small sloe-bush, supplies a decoc-
tion made from its root, and leaves so like tea as to
have deceived me into Ijelieving that it was what
it seemed. The industry of the women strews the
floor with a superfluity of carpets, cushions, and
mats ; makes slippers for the men, cloth for such
clothes as are not made of sheepskin, and a de-
licious drink from the medh'rs that i»tow on the

! ' J'

II (or

THE LKSGIIIAN MOUNTAIXS.

7»

mountain. Tlie nionntjiin sends tli(>m down tlic
purest of water, finds tlieni in unlimited fuel, nnd
provides them with Ji dessert as varied as that of
the richest IJussian in tlu; hnid : medlars, heeeh-
nuts, chestnuts, walnuts, pears, and berries of a
dozen different kinds. Their reli<»ion forhids them
to drink wine, so that, never liavinj^ used it, they
do not feel the want of it. Ap])les may he l)ouoht
in the neiuflihourini"* village of the lar;i;est size and
most hiscious quality for threepence per himdred.
Pheasants and re<ldegs abound, and are easily
caught or shot (though I never heard of snares
being used for them), while red deer and moun-
tain sheep are for the bolder and stronger among
the young men. Wild swine; come all too close to
the cornfield in autumn, and in slaying of these
tlie Lesghian not only ])rotects his harvest, but
obtains leather of the best quality for his mocassins.
Uear's fat furnishes the lamps (made after the fashion
of the se})ulchral lamps of Greece) with fuel ; and
the rheumatic patient with an external ap]>lication
that beats Elliman's eml)rocation out of sight ;
while those who suffer from colds Lake it internally,
as English people take gruel, and, I dare say, with
as good a result. From the beard moss the I^es-
ghian makes a dye with which to stain his hands,
and make them a manly brown, or 'good fast
washing colour,' as the haberdashers have it ; while
if he be a dandy, he borrows from it a darker hue

772

THE LESGHIAA' MOUXTALYS.

for liis iiioiistiu'lic. juid for the solitjuy love-lock
wliicli his ivlluion and his l)arl)('r jHTinit liim to
retain. J'x'st of all virtues, the Les^hians are
cleanly. In the whole of my stay j;!non<i".st Theni,
my "light's rest was never hrokeii hy the antics of
insect gymnasts or the attacks of hiirlier foes.

The Sunday we s|»ent in the mountain hamlet,
each accordini»' to his own fancy. Aliai went at
dawn into the hiirher jjcaks to look for trace^s of
«iaine. Ivan spent his mornini;- cross -lei»'iied on
the floor washing clothes ; and at midday we all
three met on an eminence some two hours' climb
from the valley, to ])hotograi>h some of tlic scenery
with one of Ronch's patent dry-plate apparatuses.
On our way we met the village hadji, who was
vastly interested, and promised to come in and
see more of us [ind our photograi)hs in the eve-
niniif.

In the valley the thermometer registered 70°,
while on the higher peaks, from which we tried to
take photographs, it registered "> 1° in the sun ; mean-
while the grass below was matted with ice which
showed no signs of thawing. We gathered rpiite
a line bouquet on our way up — primulas, violets,
the white blossom of the wild strawberry, forget-
me-nots, crimson clover, and a. sinule ii'olden but-
tercup. As for the ])hotography, we chose some
excellent views, and took them very carefully,
going away rpute satisfied that those at home

THE T.r.SC.niAX MOUXT^IIXS.

V7>

ve-lock
liiin to
ins arc

rliCi/i,
itics of
s.

hamlet,
vi'iit at
•act's of
uccd f)n

\V(» all
^' cliinl)
scenery
ratuscs.
Iio was
in and
ic evc-

•0(1 7(P,
ricd to
nican-
wliicli
d quite
violets,
forji;et-
11 but-
e some
refiilly,
home

would l)e able lo sliare our entliusiasm fdi* \\\v.
scenery of Lesojijii.

On our return we were met by an adminnijj
crowd, amongst whom for a few minutes one n-oman
remained, curiosity in her ease overcoiiiini;' the
modest scruples of her race. We ma<le the best of
our opportunity, and photographed her prom|)rly;
but alas! it was only the ' baboushka.'

As the ' baboushka ' is a variety of the female
race to the best of my knowledge unknown in
Enoland, J may as well take this opportunity of
describing her. She is ([uite an institution in
Ivussia, no household being com[)lete without her.
Generally she is the mother of the i)aterfamilias,
sometimes only his mother-in-law, at others merely
an aged female relative who wants a home and is
willing to undertake the housekeeping in return
for one. Whatever she is, wherever slu; comes
from, there she is, the motive managing power of
every moujik's home : in manner (juiet, giving
precedence to the wife, making no complaint when
the husband gets drunk, no stirrer-u[) of strife, no
busybody, but just a quiet old crone, with an eye on
the children, an immense capacity lor drudgery,
and suHicieut experience to help the wile in all her
little troubles. Her corner is on the toj) of the
' petchka ' (oven), whither she retires early in the
eveninjjf, eniei'ii'inii" thence to uet the samovar
ready long before daylight. Her weak

' >i

'! S.1'

374

THE I.KSGIUAN AWUXTAfXS.

vodkji .111(1 tlic |).'ij)in)s, and Inn* <;r('at('sl, liappiness
a villaucc weddin*^', at wliicli slio ^^encrally assists
as otic of a kind of chorus wliicli I liavc described
before. It is needless to add, perhaps, tliat in
appearance she is sufhciently j^rnesome to hohl tlie
yoim<!;est child in awe of hei*.

Mavin<;photoi^raphed the, ' babonslika,' we went
in to our ovenini:^ meal, <lurinuf and after which
quests dropped in ra|)idly, until we had rpiite a
crowded reception. Photography was evidently
the attraction ; and as soon j»s our pipes were lit
the aged hadji moved that the photograj>]is be
exhibited. To comply with this request it became
necessary to 'develop.' Now to stand behind a
tripod with a black rag over your head, and direct
the machine as required, Ivan and myself had found
fairly easy ; but when with chemicals and other
diablerie we had to make manifest the results of
our mummin<»' on tho hillside, we bcifan to i^row
nervous. Still we put as good a face upon it
as we could, .and made at least a show of under-
standing what we were about. The fireplace was
covered over with a bourka, the lamp extinguished,
and the w(mdering guests seated in a circle, with
strict injunctions not to shout above a whisper or
stir save at their peril. Then a candle was pre-
vailed upon to remain on an inverted dish within
the threfifold walls of a yellow baize screen, whence
it shed a ghastly light upon all the inmates of the

THE LI:SC.HIA.\ .]/(){ W /-.I /.\S.

piness
iissists
crilM'<l
I wit in
>l(l the

a went
wliicli
[uite a
(lently
ere lit
>lis l)e
)ccanic
hind a
direct
found
other
ults of

^ rri'OW

» I

])on it
iinder-
ice was
uishcd,
e, with
s]ier or
as pre-

wdthin
whence

of the

hut. Scatt'd ('r(»>^-k'n«rfd with a snhMiiii face hke
an owl by dayli;i;ht, sat the chief photon^raplier. and
Ivan served him witli a ihw «»;ravity. Howls of
water, and bottles of various halfful driins, h-nt an
air of devilment to the whole scene, which, with the
wild faces round, was sni»'i;('stive rather of wifch-
craft tlian ]»hotoirraphy. Tlie first jtlate pro<hiced
havini^ been carefully washed, was subjected to the
developini;' fluid. Thrice and four limes was the
dark liquid washed backwards and ffu'wards over
the pure surface. Interest in our i>^uesls rose to
excitement ; ditlidence in ourselves to [)anic. To
and fro, to and I'ro went the black water, but no
sisi^n of any sublime peak or ))ictures(pie villafi^ewas
slowly shadowed f(^rth upon the i;lass.

Horrid suspicions be_ii;an to take possession of
us. Surely no mistake; coid<l have hij)pened thi>.
time. True, we remendu'red that cm tin' fudy other
occasion on which we attcMupted |)hotoi;raphy we
certainly did make a |L;rou[> of Tartars ndserably
([uiet for a quarter of an hour, in all sorts of
picturesque (and uncomfortable) attitudes in the
main street of Kertch ; that we also ke])t oiu'selv(\s
and our friends' servants at work for two weary
hours in preparations for develoj)ino-, sifter which
we opened the slides and found that no plates had
ever been inserted. Ihit this time there was no
mistake about the ])lates. One alter another we
opened the slides and [)oured the developinii* flui<l

T -J

I •!,!.:

nr^

276

THE I.F.SGHIAX MOUXIJ/XS.

over their contents ; hut nh'is I none of tli;it "fhtsli-
iiiii' ji|»|>earau('e ot'\vlii(!h Mr. lomch so emphaticiilly
speaks resiilte<l therelroin. (Mi the (-oiitrarv, the
surface of the phitcs iiiaiiitaiiied an exasperatinL:;
sameness in a|)|>earance.

At hist, liowever, when ahnost all the plates had
heen lai<l hy in disgust, soinethini;' <iark which
would not wash out, an<l so small that even Allai
could not ((uite manai;e to ])ut his thumi) exactly 011
it at tlie first attempt, did apju-ar. What apj)lause
it met with ; what speculations as to what it mi«iht
represent. We distinctly remem!)ere<l to have pho-
to«rr.Mphed certain majestic snow-[)eaks. to do which
we had almost hroken our hearts with up-hill toil ;
we knew we had ])hotoi»raphe(l a villai^e from a hend
in a mountain torrent at the cost of wet feet ; hut
what was this ? (\)uld it he Allai's hat ? ]\Iiiiht
it he a l>ack view of the stoojjini;" Ivan ? Coidd it
]»ossihly he a fancy jtortrait of tiie photo<>;rapher
himself as he appeared under his rohe of mystery ?

Whatever it was, we e\plaine<l to the credulous
T.esghians that, after underj^oiniL!: a maonifyinu; pro-
cess at home, it would no douht convey a correct
i<lea of the scenery of l)a«»hestan to l^n_<;lish minds.
With this explanation we were thankful to see
they w'ore content, and silently resolved to give
away our photooraphic apparatus at the first
op])ortunity.

The next entry in the rough log I kept at this

/•///■; j./:su//iA.\ A/oi .y/.i/\s.

^77

tiiiw is made after luy return f'rnin I>aiiliestaii. ih\
|)e('eml»er L'.'l, Ivan, Allai, two other Lesuliiaiis,
and niysell' started lor tlie liii;lier peaks, in wliicli
the tnr, or mountain sheep, are said to tlwell.
Alti'r a (hiy of hard elinii)iun' we reaelied a iMiined
l»otliy used hy mountain sheplierds in the lieiulit
of summer, wliieli marks the hinliest |)oint to whieli
any of tlie iieinhlxunMni;' Hocks attain even then.
When we reaehi'd it, the roof had heen jtartly
blown otf, and the walls hroken in; snow surroundetl
us as far as the eye eould see ; snow had lormed
a drift inside (he hut on the side opposite the
breach in the wall ; snow in a broken wooden
t'cncher was bcinu,' melted witli ditlicultv over a
wood iire in tlie mitldle of the hut by one of our
men for tea ; wliile, withoul. the hanl pi-oliles of
the snow peaks surrounded us on all sides.

\\\i had stai'ted that mornini;' at five, and when
we reached the bothy the starlight was ulimmeriiii;'
on the snow, (hice durinii; the day 1 had had a
i^limpse of a Hock of wild I'oats. in colour black,
with iiiie horns and tremen<lous beards. I hey
were within 150 yards, and 1 miiiht easily have
.secured one, but unluckily was persuaded by mv
man to let them come a little closer, so as to make
assurance doubly sure. l'\>r a moment they disap-
peared round u lar<;;e boulder, and 1 waited for the
leading" uoat to appear on my side of the mass,
determine*! to tire as soon as he did so. I^>ut my

ffl '

1' 1^ ;J

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27S

////■: /./.si,/// i.v .i/(^r.\/.//.\A-

]io])rs worn (lor)iii('(I lo (lisij|»|M)iritm('Jil. The ll(^\t
I sjiw of lliosc •'•(Hits tlu'V wx'Vii uoiim- lik«' iidkI
tilings down the iii()iiiif!iiii-si<l(> a <|iiai1cr <>i' n mile
oil*. St'vural timi'H we saw tracks oi" lu-ars, and
oiU'G I liwinl one scraiiihlinj:; away, witliiii shot of
uic ])rol);il>Iy, but I coiiM not calch sinlit of iiiiii
ill time aiiionii'st \\\o lir-trocs. Aiiotlicr time we
came upon a steejj ascent, IVoiii tin* top ofwliii;)! a
shower of small stones apprised ns of the ilinht ol
three tnr ; i)nt though my mi'ii eani»ht a L;lim|»seof
them, they wen; too far o\Y even had I seen tliem.
which I did not. My man Ivan had a lonu' shot
at a chamois and missed him, »o that, after a hard
thiy's clindmi''", we reached the bothy empty-
handed.

Once fairly !imoni>Ht the snow aud ice on the
bare nx^ks, cnttinu^ steps for our ascent, and cHinbini»^
rather with our hands than with our fret, I did
not so mncli mind it ; thonii'h runnini; across a
rattlin«>^ moraine as it shifted from mider ns
was a new and startlini^' experience to me. The
almost perpendicular i^rass slopes which we Iiad to
cross Ix^iore <^ettin<i; clear of the forest Avcrc the
•greatest trials we liad. Under the "uidance of
Adolplie Folli<i;uct, of Chamonnix, I liave since
tried mountaineerinu;' in Switzerhind, after the tour-
ists liave all returned, and a few chamois may be
seen not fiu'ther from Chamonnix than the Aiguille
Dru ; but thou<»li he does not choose the easiest

J HI: I.l-SCHIAS MOLWTAIXS.

tniiks ulu'ii in |nii-snil of his jiivmiritc uiiiiu'. or
stop loo oi'tcii to lirlp his h'ss ti'ojit-likc followers,
I ricvor crossed with him siirh difHcnIt plact's as

lOSl'

I it'syl

11:111 lirass-sloix's

Too liiinl to i;iv(;

yt)ii iiny liold for your MliK-nstock, \\w short fiiu'
^rass slips from uikK'I" tl

ic iron caws o

our

clamps ; the Imtt of the rifh' sliiiiii" across your
shoulders comes in collision witli tlie steep hank
and almost hurls you into space ; the claws of the
clamp catch in your otlier hoot as you cautiously
pass one foot over another, and at every step it
seems a toss-uj) whether you u'o or stay.

It reipiired, then, no small inducement to tempt
me to continue my toil when the end of tlu; day's
journey had heen reached. Uut the inducement

as there. As we stood for a moment at tl

door ol' the liut to take in some of tlu; urandenr

of tl

le s(.'ener

hicl

I surroiiiK

led

us. seven lilo-

d (I

rions red deer came tossin«j' their

lunnh

'}'

lblloW(;d one another round the houlder of a neiuii-
bourinii" crau:;. lietween us and them was a li'reat
<j;ulf fixed, whicli c(juld only he crossed hy a ditli-
cult and tedious (;liml) ; but the stai>'s manniliccnt
head was a prize worth tryin<^ for ; so, tired though
1 was, I took one of the Tartars with me, and as
soon as the herd had passed behind a ridge, started
on their track. Following" close in their steps, we
had to cross a sheet of frozen snow hanging like a
pentice over the edge of a bottomless abyss. My

ill

■ t

I ii

If*
II I

;: t

: .

''{■

:iiu

////•: U:MjJiJA.\ AJOLMAL\S.

«;iii(|«' went first, s('tK>|»iiiM IioIIowh with flic Imtt kA
his ritic ill which tn |»iit his I'crt, jiikI in his stt'|»s I
lollowcti with coiiipMraliM' t'Msc. ihoiioii jt rt'ciuiivd
a «»()()(1 head to look (h>WM i'nmi our jM'rih)iis patli-
way.

Still the cxcitcniciit (»!' the cha^c kept wm' up:
and once across this loiiir strctcii of snow tiic
• '•oiiiii' \vas easy ciioiiiih, until wc <'aiiic to a siiia.ll
chasm which hat! to he crossc(l hy jniiipin;;". Ilatl
wc not looked too |on«;' at it the jump would not
have appalle<l lis, as it was easily within the powers
of the most third-rate athlete. As it was, it was
not without a i^ood <leal of sercwini;' up that 1 _n<>t
myself to the stickinn'-point, and ^ave my liiiide
a lead across. After this I went on l>y myself,
my Lesirhian uioinn- hack, in despair of ever licltinu^
nearer to the deer. For nearly an hour I con-
tinned to follow lip the track, expectiiin' every time
1 peered over a ridi;e to find the herd in I'anue
just on the other side; am! so alliirini;' was the
chase that even ik)W', looking; hack, 1 cannot help
ieelini'' that if 1 had only i!;one on to that next
hliilf 1 should have had my reward.

l>iit the human irame won't tr<> <>ii nioviii"' ior
ever, however much the will may desire it to, and
my unlucky limhs kept remindinij; me hy cerlain
aches and stunihles that ihey had almost reached
the limit of their powers of endurance. So all
unwilling 1 gave in and turned bjick. And now

lis

1 III. I l:.s^.lil.\.\ MiX M .II.VS.

36t

my <li(li('iiltl«'s ln»unn. The t'liiiiW lnu'k. likr :ill
siifli ('limits, srciiu'tl twice ;is loiio- !is it li:ii| ;i|»-
|)e:ire(l in eoiniiiii'. My eyes weri' i;('ttiiiu' lieavy
aiul leet like lend. 'I'lieri' was no Li'aiiie ahead t<»
allure me forward, no li'iiide by my side to advise
or direct my stt'ps. 1 heiraii to reu'ret my per-
sisteiil pursuit of the red deei'. Still, in spite of
my fatiuiie, all went well nntll I heiian to cross
the rooi-like sheet of snow between myseH'and the
hut. Ileri' the liuht seemed worse than it had •
been in eominu;, and the f tholds hard to distin-
jjiiish. When haU'way acros, I very nearlv eon-
eluded my travels, not (idv lor that niuht but for
ever. ( )ne of my i'eet slipp(il out of the hole in
whieh 1 had j)hu('<l it. and b)-onnlit me on my i'acc*
on the snow. Inslinetivelv 1 IMI inwards, di'ivini^
my rilled)arrels wilh all my streni;lh into the snow,
an<l there, ibr the worst mimite ol'niy life, i hunn",
one loot still in one of the steps and the other lei»'
haniiinu" loose on tlu' smooth suri'aee. not darinii"
to lilt myseir, Ibi* Tear lest any extra pressure should
break my remaininii" Ibothold or loosen the urip
of my rifl(! in the snow, an<l so send me treboi'i'inij'
down the sloj)e. over tlie e(|n;e of whieh I should
infallibly shoot into eti'rnity. However, it was
Christmas I'.ve, and some i;ood ani»el buoyeil nu;
u]) ; an<l when in iear and tremblino" I slowly made
tlie effort, I did with ditficulty I'cgain the uprii^ht
position, and in a few more minutew got olf that

MM'

382

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

f^^iilli'

treacherous snow-slope, with ;i leeliiii'* of relief
that almost coinpeiisated for the trouble it had cost
me.

In the hut the scene was anything but sug-
gestive of (Christmas cheer. Thawed snow and a
little stale bread was our oidy i'arc ; our only music
a bitter wind, until now unnoticed, that whistled
througb the gaps in our walls. Even the Les-
gliians could not sleep, thougli they lay aliiiost in
the embers of the fire, the pungent smoke from
which effectually blinded us for the time. All
nijj-ht long we moved about like wild beasts in a
cage, in a vain endeavour to keep warm. Now
and then one of us would sip the few drops of
thawed snow from the half-biu'nt fragment of the
wooden bowl on the lire. Once or twice a few
minutes' slee[) came to us, but they were soon
ended "with a start and a shiver that effectually
brought us back from dreandand.

I don't think any one sle])t that night : the
stars were almost as bright as ever when we left
the hut to warm ourselves by exeniise, and make
believe that a new day had begun. For some few

minutes before we left our bleak nii>:lit's lodi»in<>:

~ Of?

shrill whistling's on all sides had made me believe
that other human beings besides ourselves were
astir. As our eyes got accustomed to the light
the true source of the noise wjis revealed. All
round us groups of that great grey bird the

////; /./■.s(,///.lj\ MOLWI'ALXS.

185

Losuliians cnll the inoiintaiii turkey wciv busily
leedini**, jiiul viu'orously wliistlint;' as tlicy led.
Taim* jis tlicy were, I found tliat sliootini'' tlicm
ill that dim Iii>lit with an 'express' ritle was no easy
work, and tlie only one I kiUed fell in a crevasse,
in which w^e were ohlined, hunirrv thonj»li we were,
to hiave him. Had I tried when 1 lirst left the
hut I miifht have easily killed several, as ihey
would let nie approach within a dozen yards of
them, so tame were tliey. liut at that early hour
we had h()])es that aloni;" some one of the well-
beaten tracks near llie hut we niiiiht see tur or
wild i^'oat descending" to tlit" ])astures below ; and
witli this possibility in view we let the turke^'^s
alone until the cominu' dawn had made tlieni com-
])aratively wild.

liefore dawn we saw some birds which the
nioujitaineers call black pheasants — birds with a
flii2;ht and sha])e in every way justilyiuL;' their
Jianie. These, as well as tiie turkeys, disa|)peared
as if by mai>ic at dawn. The [)eaks, which had
been loud with their calls and alive with their
bustllnii' forms half an hour au'o, were now still as
if they had never known them, and but for their
tracks \\\^(^\\ the snow, one miiiiit have fancied they
were mere nightmares which the dayliij^ht had
dis[)ersed. The cause of their sudden disappear-
ance Allai |K)inted out to me in (he forms of tAVo
broad-winged lanuuergeiers that came with the

234

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

< 'A

\ . '

first <!;lo\v of inornin"', sniling on steady pinions
round the uionntiiin top.

Later on in the day, when, owing* to hick of
snpplies and disafi'ection amongst my men, I was
retracinu^ my steps to tlie vaUey, 1 saw more of
these mountain kini»s. We had stretched our-
selves on a ledu'c of rock on wliicli the sun shone
rather warmly, and, A\eary of climbing", wei'e
resting in his cheering heams, when a shadow
came between us and him, and looking uj), we
saw the form of one of these bearded robbers
hovering over us. A bullet from my 'express' cut
out a handful of his pinions ; for a moment the
great bird staggered as if he was coming down,
but, to my chagrin, righted himself and saikd on,
steady and calm as ever, to finish Irs circuit round
a neighbouring mountain top, and, crowning in-
solence, to repass us exactly as he had |)assed
before, except that this time the bullet did not
fly so near its nuu'k.

My time was now getting short ; so that
though I had to leave my mountain home empty-
handed, 1 decided to ])ocket my failure, and return
at once to the post-road, to continue my jonrney
to the Caspian. Had I had a good guide, who
was also a keen sportsman, a good stalking glass,
and had I come a month earlier, I am sure the
result of my visit from a sporting point of view
might have been widely different. It is easy to

TIIR I.RSGIIIAN MOUNTAINS.

2S5

^('0 tlisit «^{niK' is cxtrcnioly plentiful, nnd 1 still
look forward to a ^ood time cominfj^, when, know-
infj; my "Tonnd and my men better, I may profit
by my past experiences, and make a bap;; that any
sportsman might be proud of It is, I believe,
always very long odds against a man making a
large bag in a country utterly strange to him
without efHcient guides.

]My farewx'll to my Lesghian hosts had in it
more of regret than characterised my leave-takings
generally in the Caucasus ; and my ])resentiment.s
did not deceive me, for it was long lu'fore I met with
such a cleanly, hospitable home again. Christmas
Day I spent at Gerdaoul, where Ave had a deer
drive among the mountains on a pouring wet day,
which made our style of sport peculiarly un-
pleasant. Unluckily, Ivan shot a doe early in
the d.'iy, and over the carcass of this the whole
band of Armenians — who were to us both beaters
and hosts — fought like dogs over a lione. Seeing
there was no chance of more sport that day, I left
them to stab one another for a half })ound more or
less of venison if they liked ; and feeling a twinge or
two of rheumatism, trudged on towards Goktchai,
leaving Allai to follow w^ith the horses.

At one of the villages on my way back I was
met by a deputation, asking me to sanction the
release of a wretched Tartar, who had applied
some abusive language to me on my journey to

■1 l|

'1^ I

286

Tin: LESGIIIAN MOUNTAIXS.

tlio lipsoliinn liiiinlct, of wlilcli, in my iononiiioo
of the dialect, I hnrl been utterly unconscious. It
seems Allai had found time to send over to the
•elder of the villau'e, represent! n;i; me as a prince
under the [)rotection of the K'ussian Government,
and on his representations the ])oor devil harl been
confined in a miserable dark hut ever since. Of
course I n^ave the necessary sanction, thouprh I felt
that it mioht ))e as well not to correct Allai's mis-
taken notion of my position until i was safe an;ain
in Goktchai. [ may here mention that, though we
luckily escaped without molestation, we Avere con-
tinually advised to take an escort ; and even Allai
secured one at his own expense to see his brother
and horses safe back to the post-road when he left
ns "with the Lesghians. The Lesghians themselves
never leave their houses without one well-armed
man to protect their goods from the pilfering
Tartars, who abound in these little-visited regions.
I am thus {)articular in mentioning these things, in
order that no one who may be led to follow in my
steps may come to grief through a want of proper
caution, induced by my good luck. On our way
back to Goktchai 1 saw one of the beautiful Dal-
matian creepers which sometimes occur here,
though Allai assured me they are by no means
common.

FROM GOKTCIIAI TO LENKORAN.

287

CHAPTER Xlir.

FROM GOKTCIIAI TO LKNKORAX.

Rough tiavellinp: — Shooting by the way — Shemakha and Aksii —
Taraiitasses and post-roads — A wretched station — ^Mud volcanoes
and naphtha springs — Bustards — On the road to Salian — Swarms
of wild-fowl — A rascally oflicial — Disappointed hopes— A good
Samaritan — Rival hosts — Asiatic fever — The Mooghan steppe —
Pelicans and myriads of other birds — Tartar orgies — Banished
sectaries : the Molochans and Skoptsi — Arrival at Lenkoran — A
Persian gunsmith — Fellow-sportsmen.

The day after our return to the post-road, we
found on wakinp^ tliat the change in the weather
predicted by our mountam j^uides had ah*eady set
in. There was no longer that crisp raciness in the
air which carried us through the day's work with
comparative ease and pleasure, but a steady cold
rain, Avith occasional snowstorms, blinded the sun
and changed the roads into morasses. The hills
were already snow-clad in that one night, and had
we not left Gerdaoul when we did, we might have
remained for the winter. As it was, the prospect
of our journey to Lenkoran was not a bright one.
Every rill that crossed the road Avas fast swel-
ling to a torrent, and the fifty-seven versts which
formed our day's allotted work, and terminated at

ill

•li' .

;.i!l

ill

28S

F/^n.]/ GOKTCIIAI TO LKXKORAN.

Aksii, were vorsts of inisery juid discomfort linrd
to boar.

At Aksu tlio ])Ofitiniistor ret'iisod to "five us
hors(\^, jilK'^'iiiLi' tlijit, ill tlio prt'scut state of the
weather, to attempt tlu> raiiiic of liills between his
station and Shemakha woiiM only result in the
destruction of the ])ost-cart, h)ss of horses, and
broken hml)S for tlie fares, especially now that the
mi^ts and darkness of niiilit were renderiuo- what
road there was invisil)le.

On the road, before reachiniz; Aksu, Ave came
across three of th(» bri<^'ands of whom we have
heard so much, in chariie of a band of ' tcha])ars '
(mounted policemen), who seemed a vast deal more
like the highwaymen of romance than their sorry-
lookini*' captives did. On the morning of J)e-
cendier2Swe left Aksu for Shemakha, Ji distance of
forty versts, over hills whose sides were like wet
ploughed fields. Here the [)Ost-cart was unable to
proceed as fast as we could walk, so that we
solaced ourselves by shooting ai routi\ and derived
some consolation from the abundance of game which
we found on these hillsides. IJed-legs, hares, and
jdieasants swarmed ; and what with these, the owls,
and other birds of prey with Avhich the hills
teemed, we liad a very lively time. Wolves, too,
hjive their haunts here, as witness a deserted post-
cart, on the horses attached to which a traveller
and his yemstchik had escaped during the preced-

FROM COKTClfAI TO I.I-MsOR.lX.

^.S9

ing week, leaving tlieir cart willi the, hagga^e \^^
take care of itself.

I used to believe, before I saw Aksii, that no-
where in the world did magpies more abound than
in Galway round Loughrea, or in some lavoui-e^l
])arts of Krance ; but here in Aksu I coinited seven-
teen of these poaching rascals all together like a
flock of sparrows. In the hills halfway between
Aksu and Shemakha I saw quite a mob ol' (>agles
and hawks, busy, 1 presume, with the half-frozen
smaller birds and hares. Two or three lammer-
geiers temi)ted me to a prolonged chase ; but
though 1 hit two of them, my number four shot
would not bring them down, and 1 confess to
being unable to touch them with my rifle, in spite
of their slow Avheeling flight.

Shemakha is not a town to detain a weary
traveller long. The only inn 1 could find was an
underground 'duchan,' to which access was obtained
by a flight of stone steps leading from the road
above to a kind of vault, in which ])uddles stood
on the floor, drained off from the mud above ; and
here the cooking and liquor were as infamous as
the accommodation. Shemakha is mainly com-
posed of flat-topped Asiatic houses anil a few
smart new ones of the common llussian stamp,
with white plastered sides and green roofs that
looked bitterly cold and out of place in their
setting of snow and winter storm.

I ii

290

FRO\f GOKTCHAT TO LEXKORAN.

The rojids of this town are, without exception,
the worst for a town 1 ever saw ; nothin^^ but tlie
l)ed of a mountain torrent could ])e worse. Tlie
town bore traces of damage done by that volcanic
action from which it is a too frequent suffenu*.
The principal residents arc, I believe, Armenian ;
the principal industry the manufacture of carpets.
Shemakha is, 1 am told, an extremely old town,
and was, in days gone by, the capital of a 'gu-
bernia,' though before the Kussian rule, in the
early Persian days, the great town was Aksu, the
])ost-station at the foot of the hills, and not
Shemakha. Now Aksu has declined to a very
insignificant position ; and even should the con-
templated railway from Tiflis to Baku ever become
a reality, the volcanic spasms from which it so
frequently suffers will probably prevent Shemakha
ever attaining to any real importance.

After leaving Sliemakha the main post-road
runs on to Baku, the principal port on this side
the Caspian. As, however, my object was to get
into Persia, or, at least, so near to Persia as to run
a chance of finding tigers, I left the main road at
Shemakha, and bore away to the south-east for
Lenkoran. The road between Shemakha and
Lenkoran being extremely little used, I was
destined to see, before I reached the Caspian, the
lowest depths of the discomforts of Russian post-
travelling. Hitherto there had been at least three

FROM GOKTCHAI TO I.F.XKORAX.

29r

'troikas' (teams) kept at oacli station; now no
station liad more than two. One of tliese teams
bein'j;' always retained for emerijencies (such as the
needs of a speeial courier), there remained one
team to do all the work. FiHckily for me, I
appeared to be the only traveller; haii it heen
otherwise, I might still he stranded at some post-
house on the borders of the i\[ooghan step|»e.

As Shemakha held out no great induce-
ments to me to remain, my man and I were not
h)ng in resuming our journey. After a stage of
twenty versts through rough hilly country, we ]>ut
np for the night at a station which 1 have re-
corded by name, that I may make it infamous as
the very worst post-station in the Russian empire,
and, therefore, probably in the world. It seems a
great deal for one to say who, after all, has seen
only one side of the mighty empire of Kussia ; but
it must be remembered that in speaking thus ] am
simply relying on the Ilussians themselves, who
assure me that the Russian post-roads in the
Caucasus are the Avorst in the empire, and of
these I have had some experience. Though I
have carefuU^'' examined my map, 1 cannot find
the name of the station of which 1 am now w^ritino:
upon it ; but then I have had considerable diffi-
culty in recognising many other well-known
places, owing to differences in the spelling of
the names, and even in the names themselves,

U 2

m
flil'l

29a

F/?OAf GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

since it is no unconinion tliin<;" to meet with w
village bojistin*!; of nearly as many names as
inhabitants. Tchaillce is as near the phonetic
spellinpj of the name of this villanous collection
of liovcls as I can make it.

When we arrived, nif!;ht had set in, and with
it foul weatlier. We were tired, wet, and hiinf»ry.
No horses could liave been had even if we would
have continued our journey that nif»ht ; so we
decided to remain, and asked our way to the
traveller's room. The station is placed on very
high ground, and in an exposed position. At
the most exposed corner is the room in which
we were to pass the night. The floor was literally
more wet and filthy than the road without ; you
could not stand out of a puddle vniless you stood
on the only piece of furniture in the room — a soli-
tary bench, extremely rickety with old age, and
not large enough to hold one man in a recum-
bent position. 1'lie hearth was in ruins, the
window blown in, the door off its hinges, the
ceiling had partially fallen, and even the coloured
print of the Imiperor, with which no post-house
or public office can ever dispense, hnng in
wet fragments flapjiing against the mouldy
walls.

We tried to bale the Avater from the floor, but
it was labour wasted ; it returned as fast as we
expelled it. Do what we would to block out the

FROM GOk'TCJIA/ TO J.iwXk'O/iA.W

293

Nviinl, oui' iKirricjnIes wt-rc useless jiuMinst its fury,
owin<»" to tlie many ln'caclics it liud already made.
Wc aske(l for wood or coal — the ])eo|)le had none.
We asked lor food — tliey liad none. We tried
the stal)les, thinkinif' we mijjfht find sheUer there.
Standing over their feth)cks in liltliy shisli, in an
utinos[)here tliat would sliHe an Kngli-li horse in
three minutes, were the few wretelieddookinjz;
beasts wliose lot it was to live and hibonr at
Tchaillee. xVnd yet, in spite of adverse cirenm-
stunces such as these, in spite of short allowance
and no groomin<»', these hardy brutes, though
they look mere bags of l)ones, do more work
than our wcll-cared-for Kni»lish horses, never
seem to suffer from coughs, colds, mud fever, or
any of the hundred and one ailments to which
an unnatural amount of coddling makes our
animals subject. There is this to be said for the
Russian, if he does ncjt provide his beast with
ii'ood food and comfortable stablinu", at least he
leaves him the coat that nature gave him.

After trying in vain to iind a resting-place else-
where, Ivan and myself bribed .ae chief yemstchik
(who was also the post-master) to let us shart his
one-roomed hovel for the night. The man was a
]\Iolochan, iind lived with his parents and his chil-
dren, in a state of slovenly misery, in this one room.
The poor wife made the night hideous with 11 deej)
racking cough that led one to ho})e that she would

294

Fh'OAf iiOKTCllAl TO I.ENKOKAX.

not have to drag out a misorahlo existence at
Tchaillee much lonj^er. Tlie children were (hrty,
listk'ss akeh'tons, too lit'ok'ss even to quarrel or
phiy. Tlie man seemed to do his work as (h'iver in
the apathetic way in whicli a liorse might work in a
mill, takin;jf no interest in his task, and I'eelinj;" no
desire to better his condition. The apalhy of the
Russian moujik is the truly wonderful part of his
nature. Here was a man not more tlian thirty-
live, with half his days idle, with his wife and
children dyini^ before his eyes for the want of a
little comfort, which a week's work would have
i»'iven them, and yet he never seemed to dream (jf
mending' the windows or roof, of draining the water
from the floor, or of doing anything to prevent the
stifling inroads of the smoke, any more than his
wife dreamt of cleaninij: or rendering comfortable
the inside of her dwelling. And yet these people
were Molochans, a religious sect, ])rofessing to lead
a j>ure life according to the light of their (jwn rea-
son, disbelieving in fasting as practised by ortho-
dox Russians, and, as a rule, more sturdy, cleanly,
and useful than the average Russian moujik. The
Russian peasant settlers in the Caucasus struck me
everywhere as deteriorating rather than improving
with their change (^f country. Far into the
night my man and myself lay unable to sleep, tired
though we were, in this miserable den, passing the
time by knocking over with our kinjals as many as

J'ROM COKTLlIAi TO AAA A <VAJA'.

295

possihk* out ol" tfu* (lrovi'8 of luicf wlio iiiiidc a
playi'TouiKl ol'oiir prostriitr loniiH.

After leiiviii!'" 'rcluiillci' wc not down Mjiuin into
the pliiins, wlicre tilt! weather was nuieli milder, and
travellini;' more interesting; tc a sportsman, sinee
wild-fowl henan to abound hy the roadside, owin;^"
j)rol)al)ly to the proximity of the Kur. lietween the
third and fourth station from Shemakha, the names
of which were apparently ol'sueh a crack-jaw nature
as to render all reproduction in Mnolish hopeless, we
crossed ii tract of land covered with mud voh'anoes,
some of which wen- as much as fifteen feet in
lieight. Here, too, we saw naphtha wellin<; u}> from
the ground and runninji; across the j)08t-road in
large quantities. The yemstchik told me that the
whole country for miles n und was full of it, but very
little was utilised, as the dithculties of transport
rendered the working of the oil unprofitable.
Should a line of rail ever be opened to iiaku from
Titlis, I should imagine that these naphtha springs
will become valuable })ro[)erty.

Whilst staying at the next station after the mud
volcanoes, i was lucky enough to witness a jjassage
of the strefjita or lesser bustard [otis htra.v). These
niag-nificent birds were in millions all over the
steppe. The ground Avas grey with them ; the air
full of their cries, the sky alive with the movement
of their wings. With them were a few small flocks
of another bird, which 1 thought 1 recognised us the

!:/• \\

!'■'!!

ill

296

FROA/ GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

golden plover, l)ut of this I am by no means sure.

So much struck was 1 by the strange siglit which

this enormous passage i)resented, that I stayed the

greater part of the day to watch it ; and when at

last I left, the almost inconceival:)le flood of winged

creatures was still rolling on over the stej^pe from

west to east in undiminislied num1)ers. The lius-

sian povvder wliicli J bouglit at Tiflis had turned

out so badly, th:it at this time I had almost given

iij) using it for anything larger than teal, and even

then it was necessary to be at very close quarters

to bring the bird to bag, so miserabl}^ weak was it.

Thanks, however, to the dense masses in which the

bustartls stood and flew, I was enabled to secure

sufficient to supply my man and myself with a

welcome change of diet, by the expenditure of only

two of my treasured ' express ' cartridges. Judging

l)y what I killed, I shouhl sjiy the birds were only

iust startinii" from their sununer haunts in the

Crimea and Caucasus for their winter tpiarters in

the East. Had it not been so, they would hardly

have been as deliciously j)Iinup as we foiuid them.

But whilst watching the bustards we had let

the day slip through our hands, and to our intense

distrust we foi'.nd we could not reach Salian that

ni'dit : so we had to content ourselves with the last

post-station on the road thither, where we slept.

In the early morning I went down to the river,

li'lad to see the Kur jigain, if it was only for the

FJ^OM GOKTCHAI TO LEAKORAX.

297

sake of it;^ abimdaiico of clear water, offering a
bath without stint to the (Urty wayfarer, and tlie
promise of caviare ahnost without cost to the hungry
epicure.

Thank heaven, a Tiussian yemstchik's toilet does
not take long to make. A shake, a yawn, a
ciixarette, and, if times are i»ood, a i»lass of neat
vodka, and he is ready to face anything, from his
sweetheart to a north-easter. A\ ould that his
horses' gear avus as s])eedily arranged as his own ;
unluckily it is not. Still, in s[)ite of the scores of
breakages in the harness of rotten rope and still
more rotten thong, our impatient desire to l)e off
was "ratified at last, and with «lowin<i' visions of
at least a clean hut and lienps of good fish and ' ikra '
at Salian, we bumped all breakfnstless along our last
staii'e to the land of promise. All alon"' our route
wild-fowl swarmeil, und through theloAV covert we
saw numbers of foxes threading their way. All
the way from Adji Kabool, a station at the foot of
the hills in which Shemakha lies, and of wliich 1
can find no trace in my map. any more than 1 can
of the lariie lake near it, to Saliiui and thence to
Lenkoran, the country is full of })onds. estuaries,
and lakelets, whicli teem with wild-fowl. I stopped
the cart once to kill some pochards for dinner,
and a cc)U[)le of beautiful white egrets for jjre-

'il

servni<''.

And now the river came in sight, a broad,

il I'.

298

FJiOM GOKTCHAl TO LENKORAN.

imposing stream, with the post-house on this side,
that is to say, on the eastern bank. To our dis-
gust, hungry as we were, we were detained at the
post-liouse for an liour, by the rascally Asiatic who
presided there, under the pretence that our papers
must be first examined by the authorities on the
other side before we were allowed to cross. So
well did the fellow impose on us, that though both
my man and myself were as puzzled as we were
angry, we submitted, until a Russian coming upon
tlie scene, informed us that the fellow was only
trying to extort black-mail from us for his supposed
services in getting our papers in order ; and our
new acquaintance, having a fellow-feeling for his
countryman my servant, took the Asiatic by his
beard, spat in his face, and with many abusive
epithets ordered him to see to our immediate
transport to the other side, unless he wished to be
placed in charge of the police. Our courtesy aiid
civil speeches the brute hud answered with all
possible rudeness, attributing our politeness, as all
these people do, to a sense of our own weakness ;
but to the greater brutality of the Russian the
weaker iiature of the Asiatic yielded at once, and in
a few minutes we were waving adieux to our timely
helper from the other side the Kur.

Our first business was to inquire where the
hotel was, and our next where caviare might be
bought, resolving mentally to purchase sufficient

Hide,

FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

299

to feed us all the way to Lenkoran. Of eourse 1
niio'lit have expected the answers to my questions,
after all 1 had seen of Russian promises and their
fullilnient. Of course there was no hotel. There
were hut six Russian families of any kind in Salian,
all the rest were Tartars. Wliatever you wanted
you might huy from Tartars in the open hazaar,
who would not serve you if they could help it ; it
you wanted to eat, you might eat standing there
or in the doorway of the n.erchant who sold vodka.
There was no caviare at Salian to be had for hne or
money. It was not the right season for fresh ' ikra,'
and ' pressed ikra ' {i.e. caviare) could not be bought
nearer than l^osghi Promysl, the great lishery,
hfteen miles off, where it cost rather more than it
does in the Crimea. Even had 1 been at Salian
at the right season, I could only have purchased
this luxury, for which it is famous, by >>;tealtli, as
the whole produce of the fishery is bought up by
merchants at a distance, to wlioui it is sent direct,
it being specially }>rovided by contract that they
should have an entire monopoly. Thus, though
Salian and Bosglii Promysl are tlie places whence
the greater part of the caviare sold in Russia
comes, tliey are tlie two most difficult places at
which to buy it.

Standing moodily in the wine-merchant's dooi'-
way, muncliing a lumj) of dry bread, the meagre
realisation of all our dreams of luxury and rest,

300

FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

II ; \

our wuyworii looks arrest^^d the attention of a
good-natured liussian fmstom-house officer, one of
the few Europeans in Salian. This good Samari-
tan, wlien he heard the story of our bliglited hopes,
took us home to his own house to dinner, and
whilst Avaiting for it a curious thing happened. A
messenii'er arrived from another Russian official,
of whom 1 had never heard, also asking me to
dine. Of course, I sent back the most polite
answer possible, pleading my previous engagement,
and promising to come and thank him for his
civility before I left Salian. To my astonishment,
the messenger came back in a fcAV minutes to say
that I was not to heed Mr. So-and-so — he was
only a poor devil of a custom-house officer — but
was to come and dine at once with the great man,
his master. My host seemed by no means sur-
prised at the message, or even annoyed, tliougli it
was delivered, to my intense chagrin, in his pre-
sence. There was but one thing to say in answer
to this second message of my would-be host ; and
having said it, I sat down to dine with my iirst
friend, meditating much on the manners and cus-
toms of the East. But my astonishment increased
when, after dinner, my host entreated me to go
with him to his rival's, that that rival might hear
from my own lips that it was no fault of my host
that I had dined at his house in preference to that
of the greater man. Of course I yielded, and both

FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

301

1 of a

one of

Miinuri-

liopes,

r, and

ed. A

official,

me to

t polite

i;enient,

for bis

ihment,

to say

be was

2r — but

at man,

IS sur-

oiigb it

Ills pre-

answer

<t ; and

ny iirst

id cus-

creased

'i t(J <J^X)

bt bear
iiy bost
to tbat
id botb

[le and 1 met Avitb a very favourable reception at
tbe bands of tbe great man, wbo produced in my
bonour, on bearing tbat I was an Knglisbman,
two bottles labelled beer. Tbese bottles of beer
bad been tbe good man's pride for many a dny,
and T verily believe it gave bim more pleasure to
l)e able to see a real Eno-lisbman drinking bis
beer tban it did tbat Englisbman to bumour bis
wbim.

In every bouse in Salian tbe Asiatic fever seemed
to rage ; balf tbe inmates of eitber bouse in wbicb
1 was entertained were down witb it, and tbis, too,
at tbe time of year wben it is least virulent.

Tbere being no inducement to remain in tbe
place, we walked tbrougb it, and baving found it
destitute of all objects of interest, ordered a fresb
team of borses to proceed on our journey to tbe
Caspian. For once tbe story tbat tbere were no
borses was found to be a true one, and, unable to
find lodging in the town, as we were unwilling to
burden eitlier of our bosts witb our presence, espe-
cially since tbe fever bad deranged botb tlieir bouse-
bolds, we made energetic endeavours to obtain some
conveyance to tbe next station, wbicb was reported
weatber-proof, and Ji capital station for wild-fowling,
Wbilst tbus en;j^a<T:e(l we came across a Tartar sellinu'
foxskins, and were mucb struck by tbe enormous
rpiantity, all recently killed, wbicb be bad for sale.
They were skins of tbe common fox, shot in the

! ,

^02

FROAf GOKTCHAI TO LES KORAN.

neighbourhood, and were being sold at from 30 to
50 copecks apiece.

Never had we such difficulty in procuring
horses as we had now. None of the Tartars or
other peasants would take us, late as it was, across
this first strip of the IMooglian desert to the next
post-station. It seemed that rdl the steppe was
covered by nomad Tartars, wlio descend every year
from the hills and winter in the Mooghan. These
men bear (probaljly with justice) an extremely
bad reputation, and, although we at last persuaded
a young Tartar of Salian to convey us in his ' arba,'
it was only after we had spent all our persuasive
powers upon him, showing him how well armed
we were, and promising that we would keep our-
selves out of sight, in order not to excite the
cupidity of any of the wandering gentry we might
meet ; in addition to which he stipulated tliat a
place should be provided for himself and ' arba '
within the protection of the walls of the post- station
until next morning.

Under these conditions we stowed ourselves
away in the bottom of his cart, which resembled
nothing so nmch as a huge oblong wicker-basket
on solid wooden wheels, some eight feet high.
This edifice was drawn by one horse, through rather
than over eighteen versts of villanous road, the
consequence being that we proceeded at a foot's
pace for the whole distance. Far and near in

FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

303

every direction were the fires of the Tartar en-
campments. Several times, much to our driver's
disgust, we had to pass witliin u few hundred
yards of their wretched tents, which consist of four
sticks stuck in the ground, and a piece of black felt
stretched over the top. Under this tliey rest, the
four sides open to every gust of wind, while a birgc
lire close by warms them where they lie, and with
its flickerino' flames lends additional wildncss to the
scene, as well as to the grim figures passing and
repassing before it, and strangely magnifying the
group of animals tethered hard by. These nomads
must be more than mere gii)sies, from the number
of horses and cattle which I saw in their encamp-
ments. They are a great bore to the sportsman,
for, though the Mooghan is alive with antelopes
in the summer, these sensible little beasts leave it
as soon as the Tartar hordes make their ap-
pearance.

As we left Salian the evenino' was closino* in
fast, and the whole sky was a vivid stormy crim-
son, which, being caught by the endless level plain,
had a very grand effect. A vast flight of pelicans
in marching order, line upon line, came slowly
winging their way from the fishery at Bos<dii
Promysl to their night's rest in some reed-bed (m
the Kur. Tlie solemn even flitrht of these irreat
birds, their countless numbers, great size, and
quaint grave aspect were in wondrous keeping

liM '*

304

FROAf GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

\'\ ■ 'i\

with the scene, and formed with it a fouf-eni^emhle
not easily for«ii;otten. Once or twice en route a wild-
lookin«z; fellow on horseback rode up and inspected
US, but, though our driver's nerves were much
upset by these visits of inspection, no evil canie of
them, our visitors probably thinkin<:; one such
wretched horse as ours was hardly wortli tlie
stealino;.

From Salian to Lenkoran would have been an
excessively uninteresting drive had it not been for
the teemin<^ bird-life on all sides. The nearer we
got to the Caspian, the more the fowl increased.
At one place we shot splendid Numidian cranes,
whose stately forms might frequently be seen. At
another flamingoes, white and rosy, tempted us
from our tarantasse. In the mist of early morn-
ing an eagle, alit by the roadside, almost frightened
us by his apparently gigantic proportions ; and
even when he flew away, unharmed and but little
alarmed by our bullets — when, too, we had made
all allowance for the exaggerating properties of
the mist — we could scarcely believe that he be-
longed to any known species, so gigantic did he
appear.

In those parts of the journey where the post-
ruad ran through sand-hills nejir the sea, the noise
of the fowl was simply deafening. In the Crimea
the varieties of wild ducks are extremely numerous,
but here it seemed almost as if there were as

FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

305

many different species as tliere are ducks any-
where else. The most striking, after the flamin-
goes, swans, and pelicans, were perhaps the brigh.r
red duck, called here 'gagar,' and the beautiful
mandarin duck, which 1 only saw once at close
quarters. I^ut amongst the countless flights there
were scores of different plumages, to whose wearers
I could give no name ; and I feel sure that any
ornithologist who is at the present moment looking
for some new ground over which to follow up his
favourite study, would find ample reward for the
journey in a visit to the swamps round Lenkoran
in the winter months.

Travelling by night over the steppe, we passed
a Tartar village at some little distance, from which
came an unwonted glow of red light, and cries as
of pandemonium let loose. On asking Ivan what
it meant, I was told that it was the Tartar
l^airam, or rather the preparation for it. Anxious
to see what was doing, I, contrary to my driver's
advice, slipped out of the tarantasse and stole
unobserved upon the scene — a scene wilder than
the witches' meeting in Macbeth. Among the
huts and hayricks on the wet steppe, a mob of
half naked Tartars had erected a post, and on this
post had fixed a monster firebrand. From this
the liffht fflowed and flickered on the brown limbs
and wild faces of an excited b? nd of dancers, who,
in perfect time, kept advancing and retreating

* !

W'.

■I

lit

306

FROAf GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

around it, singing in time to their steps tlie while.
Now and again another })and, which formed a
chorus to the principal performers, broke in with
a chant, of which I couhl only catch two con-
stantly-repeated words, seeming to my ears to be
best represented thus, ' Shaksay, Maksay.' The
dance, though extremely rude and simple, was
effective from the surroundings and the great
accuracy with which each performer executed his
part ; and this was the more remarkable since every
male from four to eighty in the village seemed
to be taking part. The women only were idle
spectators.

After watching them for some time the dance
came to an end, and the people began to scatter, a
signal for me to get back to my cart before any one
caught me intruding. Ivan, my man, told me
that in another fortnight they would begin still
wilder rites, hackinoj and mutilating themselves
with knives, after the manner of the priests of
Baal.

The Russian peasants tell you that the Tartars
do this in memory of a certain Lutra, queen and
Amazon, erst of Erivan, whom Russian soldiers
slew. She, dpng, bade the Tartars thus maltreat
themselves once a year in memory of her, the
which if they did, she on her part would in thirty
years' time rise again, to Lad and rule over them
in great glory. Many a thirty years has passed

FROAf GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

307

since then, and Lutra the (jueen has not kept lit-r
word : throiifjli wliicli some of the Tartars liave of
their own acoonl ceased to observe tliese rites ;
others liave yiehled to tlie power of Ilussian law,
which forbids tliese sava«»e oroies under penalty
of very heavy punishment ; while still a few prac-
tise their rites in the darkness of midniiiht and
in the desolate wild places of the steppeland.

For at least thirty versts of our journey the
road ^vas impassable, owin<j^ to the overflow of the
river; and this necessitated a lon^^ circuit extremely
unwelcome to ns. In the villan^es that we passed
through towards the end of our drive, the people
w^ere for the most part Molochans, clean, hard-
working peasants compared to those around them,
but very objectionable from at least one point of
view, as nothing would induce them to cook our
game for us for fear of defiling themselves — fifty
per cent, of the birds we shot being unclean in
their eyes. These ]\Iolochans, near Lenkoran, are
probably some of the descendants of the 1,500 or
2,000 that the Emperor Nicholas drove out of
Russia into the Caucasus.

The country near Lenkoran is in places good
meadow land, covered even now with rich young
grass ; here and there it has been broken up for
cultivation, and in such places the soil appears
extremely rich.

At last a lonjr line of sordid huts announced

X 1>

308

FJ?OA/ GOA'TCJM/ TO LENKORAN.

ihemselves as the suburbg of Lenkoran, and the
homes of another sect, wliicli the Emperor Nicliohis,
with greater reason perhaps, expelled from Hnssia.
These are the Skoptsi (eunuchs), or White Doves
as they prefer to call themselves, l^esides muti-
lating themselves, tliese people drink no sti'ong
drink, and eat very little of anything beyond
bread and oil. The people of Lenkoran say they
live a quiet, harmless life. Those I saw of this
sect were big bloated men, with faces as devoid of
expression as the lives they lead.

Though Lenkoran was of course not the para-
dise it had been represented to be at Tiflis, it was,
however, less disappointing than many of the places
I had seen. There were really a few Europeans in
the town ; there was a fair bjjzaar where food
could be bought ; there was a room attached to the
estabhshment which grandiloquently styles itself
the Lenkoran Club, in which we conld sleep on a
wooden floor in comfort ; there w^as a post-office,
and (although it took a long time to find him, and
when found, he had nothing but a single pair of
shears for apparatus) there was a barber. For the
rest Lenkoran is at tin's time of year a sea of nuid ;
in the summer it mu.So be a cloud of dust. The
streets are in phh-ej paved, though badly; there
are no shops outside the bazaar, wliicli is held in
an open space without the town, and where most
of the traders are Persian or Tartar ; the houses

the

■oves
iiti-

FKOAf GOk'rCHAI TO IJ-.XKOKAX.

309

tire ill-built; and from the dismal, sickly-coloured
sea, which lies motionless by the walls of the
town, comes an olKensive odour which nmat be im ■
bearable in sunuuer. Tlu; otHcials of the phiee are
ahnost all Armenian.

Soon after my arrival, I went down to the
bazaar to hxjk for a gunsmith, and fin(hn<;* an old
Persian cross-lcu'j^^cd in a l)ooth hunj^' with ancient
arms and danoerous-lookin':; ,i!;uns, submitted niv
fowl inu;- piece to him for repairs. The injury he
had to set ri«j;ht was a l)ad dent in one of the
barrels, <^ot by a fiill from the taraiitasse on our
road here. The last I saw of liim he liad the end
of something* like a pokca* down the nuizzle and
was belabourini»; my luckless «^'un with a sled«;'e-
liammer. I think this nnist have nearly roused
me ; but it evidently did not quite, for my next
recollection is of waking suddenly in the booth
beside the old armourer, who had Ion"; a«;o finished
n)y gun's repairs, and was now gi-avely amused at
Ivan's face of surprise at the odd position in which,
after half a day's search, he at last found me. Be
it said to the honour of that Persian, when I lei't
the bazaar my gun was fairly mended, and theve
was nothing missing from my pocket.

During that first day at Lenkoran I had much
to do, especially as my num was tokl by the
employes of the local forester that we should not be
allowed to shoot without a licence. An interview

HI ■>

H:';!

Mil If!'

t i

{■ !

■■i.r

310

F/iOM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN,

with the forester hhnsdf soon set this right, and
in his house I saw the skin of a recently killed
leopard, which gave me greater hope of success than
I had dared hitherto to indulge in. On the day
after my arrival I was lucky enough to make the
acquaintance of a German gentleman named Miiller,
who from the moment he discovered my nationality
took me under his especial care. We met first at
the house of one of the sportsmen of Lenkoran,
who, havmg heard of my arrival, hfid arranged a
banquet in my honour. Here, after dinner, whilst
discussinoj the chance of seeinij a tij^er — a chance
which grew more and more remote the more I
pursued it — one of the guests proposed that I should
make a house of his in the neighbouring forest my
head centre during my stay. T'lis hut he called
the ' Shabby Shanty,' and the chance of resting imder
the roof of a house with an Irish name and an
English-spbaking master, with capital sport all
round, was too good to be refused ; so as usual I
decided on the spur of tlie moment to entrust my-
self to my new friend's care,

It is only fair to say that wherever I went in
Kussia, I invariably met with rea ly hospitality, so
much so that my whole journey was little more
than a series of expeditions begun, if not finished,
imder the auspices and at the suggestion of some
new-found friend.

1(1
Id

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN.

i'l

CHAPTER XIV.

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN. — RETURN TO TIFLIS.

Lenkoran — Abundance of game — Eryvool forest — Native fowlers — A
hunting lodge — Swarming coverts — Wild boar — A paradise for
sportsmen — Pigs at bay — ' Old Sliirka ' and bis quarry — A dying
eagle — Caspian woodpeckers — Festive nights — Watching for a
tiger — Forest life by night — The eagle-owl and bis prey — End of
a long vigil — The rainy season — The streets of Lenkoran — The
return journey to Tiflis — Adventure at Adji Kabool — Experi-
ences of post-travel — BuUyuig a station-master — Armenian Pro-
testants — Russian telegraph service — In miserable plight — A spill
over a precipice — Refitting our tarantasse — Argumentum ad
huminem — An awkward predicament — Cbasing a yemstchik —
Renewed life at Tiflis — Great snow-fall — Running down antelope
—The • black death.'

Lenkoran is almost surrounded by marshes, in
which snipe and \voodcock, with all maimer of
lono*-leij:oed, lono:-necked strangers to a British
eye, together with hundreds of the falcon tribe,
disport themselves daily. Here my man and my-
self spent a day or two shooting specimens of the
birds least known to us ; but on the third day we
took horse and rode to a larger lake, on which we
embarked with our friend the German, intending to
cross over to the woods which fringed the further
side, somewhere in the depths of which the ' Shabby
Shanty ' lay. On this lake were simply myriads of

,1' <

lili

water-hens. The whole surface sepiiied dark with
them, the ree'^s aUve with their ceaseless cries.
The sale of these birds is quite a feature m the
street life of Lenkoran. The bazaar is full of their
carcasses ; at every street corner you meet men
hawking them for sale ; every other peasant you
see is carrying two or three home for the pot.

On the lake are many flat-bottomed boats in
which che fowlers pole themselves through the
mazy waterways in the reed-beds, until at a sudden
turn a closely packed bevy of water-hens offers
them a remunerative shot. So cheap are the birds
in the bazaar, that to kill them singly with i^c.
gun would entail absolute loss on the gunner. Ltit
besides these wild-fowlers, who are after uil but
occasionally employed in their pursuit, there are the
regular enemies of the poor little fowl, men who
have decoys, and nets drawn across certain straits,
down which they drive the birds, until in diving to
escape they are caught by scores in the submerged
net. There are naturally quantities of other fowl
on these lakes, but the water-hen seems to thrive
and abound most, and is so much more easilv
taken than the others that it is the staple food of a
large number of the inhabitants of Lenkoran.

our

voy

aire we overhauled one of the reirular

fowlers, a Tartar, witli whom we had a rather hot
dispute. As he drew up his net full of struggling
or already drowned birds, we were horrilied to see

RETURN TO TIFLIS.

j»j

that instead of killing outright those which were
not yet dead, he took the trouble to break their
legs and wings, and so cast them a living, helpless
mass of pain and fear into the bottom of his boat,
there to live for hours in horrible anguish. We
explained to the fellow hew much simpler for him,
and how much kinder to the birds it would be,
to wring their necks outright ; but we might have
spared ourselves the trouble. The Tartar intellect
could not comprehend the beauty of mercy, and all
we could get was a grin and the assurance that if
he did not breuh their legs or wings they would
escape him ; and as he might be out a day or two, if
he killed them at once they would not be fresh
when taken to market. It was no good arouino-
any more ; so merely insisting on putting all he had
so far taken out of their misery with our own
hands, we left him, feeling that were we to give
way to our own impulses he would have spent the
next few hours witli four broken liuibs in the
bottom of his own boat. The water-hens are sold
at about fivepence, wild duck at about sixpence a
brace.

On the far side of the lake a troop of villagers
were waiting to carry our baggage through the
swampy forest, where neither horse nor cart
could now conveniently travel, to our host's log
hut.

The chief objects of cultivation here were rice

ilJ'f i

f '' t

.I'^r

:itii

314

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN.

and mulberry-trees ; and though the wild boars
played the deuce with the rice-fields, the mulberry-
trees and their devourers the silkworms throve
amazingly. Mr. Miiller, our host, had not knocked
about in all the odd corners of the earth for
nothing, so that when we reached his Shanty,
though at a couple of dozen paces or so you might
meet with impenetrable jungle, we found it the
most comfortable well-built house we had seen
since we left Tiflis. In the night wild boars had
dug up the small patch of garden by the door ; on
a little X not far off, a badger had turned up
all the turt in his nocturnal gambols ; while right
and left as we approached snipe and cock went off
like crackers from under our feet.

During the first three days of our stay at
Ery vool, we did nothing but shoot cock and phea-
sant, or, with a pack of fine dogs, the pride of Mr.
Midler's heart, hunt the wild swine that abounded in
the thick places of the forest ; while east and west,
and south and north, our messengers went forth
offering large rewards for tidings of any tiger or
leopard within three days' marcli.

To those who have not seen the wild -fowl shoot-
ing of the Caspian, any account of the swarms of
cock and snipe (chiefly jack^ at Ery vool in the be-
ginnmg of the year 18 7J) would seem overdrawn.
We were sick of shooting before the three days
^♦'ere over, though it took more than one day of

wr'

RETURN TO TIF LIS.

315

ceaseless firing to get used to the snap-shooting,
which is alone practicable in these dense coverts.
Wherever the forest was at all dry — and this was
for the most part in fairly open places — the rush and
glitter of a pheasant's noi^^y wings broke the mono-
tony of cock -shooting. Once, as I snapped at
one of the ghost-like little birds flipping over the
top of the thick bush with silent wing, that liad kept
rae engaged all the morning, the bushes at my feet
were parted with a crash. With an indignant
snort, and tail curling crisply over his retreating
quarters, the black form of an old boar afforded an
excellent mark for my second barrel. Luckily for
me he did not charge, or a rent in my waistcoat
might have rewarded me for foolishly assaulting so
formidable a foe with No. 0.

Everywhere the forest was carpeted with flowers,
though the crocuses, of which my English corre-
spondent Mr. Maw was so anxious to obtain speci-
mens, had not unluckily shown their heads as yet.
The conunonest flower of all avus the crimson
cyclamen, and next to it its white congener.

Day b}^ day the story was tlie same. Cock-
shooting in the morning, a run Avith the dogs in
the evening, a merry night with Mr. Miiller in the
Shanty, but still no tidings of a feline foe. Let the
history of one day stand for that of many. An
hour's ploddhig through nuid and slush on a bright
spring day, with every now and then a snap-shot at

I i;

III

ill

a brown flash of light that ghdes through the trees
before us, has at last brought us to that thick covert
in which we expect to find the great wild boar.
All the dreamy spirit of the young year is abroad ;
and as we lazily drag our legs over the clinging
morass, every briar that winds itselfround us almost
tempts us to give in and roll over on the soft black
mud, rather than resist any longer the sleepy in-
fluence of the season and the perpetual assaults of
bog and briar. The weight of our rifles has doubled ;
never before were our coats so thick, never before did
an old mossy trunk look so irresistibly tempting ;
and take it all in all, we begin to think a cigarette
and castle-building, Avith the buzz of the woodland
life in our ears and the languor of spring in our blood,
would be infinitely better than this ceaseless toil for
a boar who as little cares probably to be roused
from his deep dreams as we care to rouse him.

Luckily at this moment, when we were ail but
yielding lo the temptations of the sunshine, the
deep voice of old Shirka sounded a reveillee : in
a second dreaminess had gone, the briars ceased to
hold, and if the young wood did swing back and
nearly switch our eyes out or break the bridge of
that too prominent nose, we heeded it not. ^^^or
before us, with gruntings and with snortings loud
enough to Avake the whole drowsy woodland, a
great black sow is crashing through the covert, the
sable imps, who call her mother, pressing close

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RETUR\ TO TIFLIS.

^^7

behind, while the deep voices of Shirka and his mates
urge them on to still more desperate endeavour.
Each gunner, who up till now has been but halt'
animate, plunges recklessly through the rending
thorns to gain some point at which to turn the
chase or make that shot Vvhich sliall render him the
after-dinner hero of the day. A nd now from the deep
baying and the cessation of the crashing amongst
the scrub, we judge that Shirka and his friends have
collared the quarry in the thick thorn yonder ; so
thick that the light can barely penetrate, and so
viciously tenacious and sjuteful as to give the in-
vading sportsman an idea of personal malice. From
a point of vantage we at last get a glimpse of the
fray. There are seven small pigs, and on the flanks
of each a dog is hanging, Avhile the great yellow
dog Shirka and another are struggling silently with
the old sow in the middle of a small pond of black
mud and water. But she is too strong for them : we
dare not, however, help with our rifles, and cannot
get to close quarters in time with our knives ; so
one by one the little squeakers wriggle themselves
away, and the old mother and her litter, after
another rapid burst, get clean ofl*, and leave us all
lamenting. Had the pigs been of larger growth the
dogs would in all probability have concentrated
their attentions more upon one object, and so our
chase might have had a happier issue.

As it was we pursued our way in crestfallen

, 1

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3i8

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN.

silence, until Shirka makes a point at a small thorn-
bush by our side. ' Nonsense, old do^i^, come aw.ay ;
we can see through it.' Hardly were the words
out of our mouth than with more activity than you
would o^ive a pii^ credit for, a hui^eold boar sprino^s
from the very heart of the thicket, and the brave
yellow Shirka plunges recklessly at him. The
veteran hound is one great record of a thousand
fights, his tawny hide seamed and knotted with the
marks of many a tusk, but he is as reckless now as
he was when a puppy ; and dearly as his master
loves his old hound's pluck, he would give a great
deal to see a little of that discretion mixed with it
which might save his favourite from an untimely
end. As the hound closes the boar turns, and in
the turning offers a fair mark for the rifle on the
other side of the thicket ; so once more old Shirka is
saved from those gnashing ivory bayonets which he
has so often rashly challenged.

After this there is a lull. The hounds' loud
voices have proclaimed to every living thing that
death is abroad in the forest, and boar and roe have
moved off to some deeper recess, where in shadowy
silence they can spend the spring noontide unmo-
lested. One bird the rifle's reverberating voice has
not scared, and as the great eagle comes wheeling
over the forest path, he throws quite a shadow on
his enemies below. But the voice that stilled the
wild boar can still yours, too, poor forest king, and

RETURX TO TIF LIS.

I'O

le
id

thoui^h yon como down but slowly, you must rest
awhile on that old n;narled oak before your jiinions
are strong enough to liear you away agjun, to die
in peace. Yet though the ])lood drops slowly from
your beak, you cling fiercely to the tough old
oak with iron claws worthy of their perch, and
look in silent, wonderino; raije at the foe scarce
thirty feet beneath. Then with one supreme effort
you launch yourself on your last voyage: again
the leaden hail strikes upward under the now failing
pinions, and the great lord of air furls his sails and
with a dull thud comes down, eyes still unclosed,
talons still drawn back to strike, and the curved
beak eager for other blood than the red stream that
dyes it now. Peace be with you, brave bird ; like
many another, when the shot had been fired, I
would have given the last rouble in my pocket not
to have fired it. Still as a hunter you lived, and, by
a just retribution, by a hunter's hand you died.

After this the handsome form of the great black
woodpecker attracted our covetous eyes, and for
nearly a couple of hours his delusive whistle lured
Ivan and myself from tree to tree, always near us
yet never in sight. All things come to those who
wait, and at last his crimson crest was added to the
scalps of those already slain. During this day, too,
we were lucky enough to shoot that rare bird the
fkus St. JoJm, a woodpecker much resembling our
common spotted woodpecker. A propofi of wood-

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320

SHOKES or THE CAS PI AX.

peckers, my friend Mr. IMiiller, who was a keen
observer of natural history, assurer! me that he
had frequently ol)served near his house during the
last two years an extremely small woodpecker, in
shape like all its congeners, in size if anything
^slightly less than a spnrrow, and in colour brilliant
emerald green. I>eing a zealous preserver of rare
birds, he had never attempted to molest the pair,
which he assured me built every year near his hut ;
and I fear that it was my keenness to see the bird
and his suspicions of my evil intentions with
regard to them, which prevented his ever pointing
out to me these specimens of a woodpecker as
yet unknoAvn I believe to British ornithologists.

Towards evening, tired with the chase, we
would light our cigarettes and m.ake our way home
by some well-known track, shooting as we w^nt
sufficient cock and pheasants to secure us against
the possibility of scarcity during the next few days.
Not uncommonly, as we drew near the house, the
dogs that for the last quarter of an hour had been
wearily following at our heels, with drooping tails,
stopping from time to time to lick a lacerated paw,
would suddenly erect their hackles, and fresh as
ever charge furiously into the home enclosure,
where, after the manner of more fashionable beings,
the wild swine family had been paying us a visit,
having first carefully ascertained that we were sure
not to be at home.

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.121

Tlio nif^lits s|)e(l hy blithely o!ioii<i;h. The Now
Yonr's festivities, if not of any very formidable
pretensions at Eryvool, were at least lovinoly pro-
tracted, and every night oin* oreat-1 imbed German
friend miji^ht be seen niixinfj his loved lint wine
for our delectation and his own.

I>ut one ni_i>ht the lint wine was not brewed, not
more than ten 'papiroses' were smoke<l, the talk was
no lonjjer of Australian ijold-dio-i^inirs or American
prairies — for had not the natives brought tidings
of the game we had come so far to seek ? At
some distance from our dwelling two nights before
a reivinjji; tijjer had struck down a Persian's cow
at a little settlement on the edge of the forest ;
there was the cow lying still, plain for all eyes to
see, and the tiger's track clejirly marked on the
sand-bank of the little rivulet hard by. The next
night saw an eager trio of s])ortsmen on the spot.
Ronnd the copse where the tiger had been, and to
which we hoped he might return, Mr. Miiller, [van
and myself posted ourselves, each perched in a
tree, and pledged solemnly to one another to
wait there in silence through tlie livelong night.
Their perches I did not see, but my own I have
cause to remember. A tall tree-stump, perhaps
twenty feet high, had been roughly hewn or broken
at the top, the ragged edges of w^hich n'^tc terribly
apt to break, and pierce the too coniiding being
who placed his weight upon them. Round this

3aa

SHOKF.S OF THE CASPIAN.

roii(rh tlirono soinc small brnnchcs made a fairly
(lonso screen ; and as some cotnpensalion for the
deficiencies of my s(^at, I discovered two deep
cavities, into which my lono- jnck-ljoots fitted
admirahly. I*erched here, I heard the last soft
scrunch of my companions' relreatin;*; tread; and
then takin<^ a preliminary look at my watch, I
fairly settled down to my ni<j^ht's vi^^il.

For u time, of course, we couM expect nothing.
Our passanje through the woods was sufficient to
have precluded all hope of scein<j^ any game for
an hour to come. JIoav still it all seemed.
Even the sea is a noisy babbler compared to the
depths of a forest at night. What a glorious
moon that was that ij^leamed down throno;h the
network of creepers and wild vine above, throwinj^
long shadows on the grassy opening below. J3i
how slowly the moments pass ! Is it possible I
have only been here a quarter of an hour ? 1
move restlessly, though silently, on my perch,
and tlien the intense cold which is numbing my
right leg calls for attention. On withdrawing
the suffering limb from its hiding-})lace the
mystery is solved — that comfortable hole, which
fitted the foot so excellently, is a natural well,
in which the offerings of many forest showers
have been carefully stored. No wonder that, as
the water soaked through during that frosty night,
the unlucky leg grew numb. The change of

rl'

RF.TURX TO TIF US.

32.1

posture nccoss!tiit(Ml by this discovery is decidedly
a cli}inj!:e for the worse, and stronmT and strontrer
•xrows the conviction in my mintl that a fair set-to
with Mr. Stripes for a (piarter of an liour l)y hroad
davli^xht would he far better than this silent ni<rht-
watch on a painfully acute ti'e«'-stumj).

Gradually the inmates of the woods seem to
re«»;ain confidence. That sharp querulous bark
came from a jackal, who is ' loartn;^ around ' jis the
^ ankees say, just within the shadow of the
thicket opposite us. Then there is a whish, whish
of whirling winf!;s, and we hear phantom fii<(hts of
(hick come sweepinjj^ over the tree-tops chise to us,
but invisible to our eyes in spite of the bri*]^ht
moonlight. Tlie silence is one moment intense;
then, })efore you havc^ time to l)link, the rush
of wings is upon you and past you, and the birds
are rattling and plopping down into the dark little
forest pools, in the soft mossy places, or, best of all,
amongst the young wheat of the luckless Persian.
What a merry chuckling they make as every fresh
flight comes in from its day-dreams and play on
the sea. Ivich batch of new comers takes at least
ten minutes to publish its budget of news and
arrange for its places at sup})er.

Again a sudden silence falls on them. Too-
whoo-op! too-whoo-op! Ah! you may well crouch
tremblino^ under covert now. But as soon as the
shadow of the great night-fiend has passed on, the

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324

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN,

I M

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ducks are .is merry anrl noisy as ever. It is well
foi them that they have no human minds, or the
horror of his presence would have stilled their
innocent merriment for the night. A more terrible
foe than the eagle-owl to all that are too weak to
resist him it is Iiard to conceive, 'i'he huge spread
of utterly silent wings, the lugubrious cry, the
enormous talons, sharper and more tenacious than
those of an eagle, and those great iierce eyes,
luminous with yellow fire, all contribute to make
a tout-eni^civMe of which a Hindoo devil might be
proud. Ghostlike, he glides by close to the earth,
a silent cloud in the moonlight, on wings that
never seem to stir. Woe to the crouchinc:: bare
whose ears, quick though they are, have told her
nothing of the approach of her mortal foe.

If the Tartars and moujiks of the steppes
where the eagle-owl is found are to be believed,
once the great bird seizes its prey, it has not itself
the power of relaxing its grip immediately.
Knowing this, and dreading lest the old grey
hare, gaining fresh strength from terror, should
in her mad career under thorn-bush and briar
tear her unwilling rider to fragments, the owl
clutches the ground or some other o])JLCt w^ith
one talon, while with the other she strikes the
prey. And now it becomes a tug of war for life
and death. If the owl's muscles are strong
enough to hold the prey, well for the owl; but

RETURN TO TIFLIS.

325

if not, the nioiijiks tell strange storie;- of liaviiig
found half one of these grim birds, one talon still
clutching the ground, and the other, with the re-
mainder of the bird's body, still firmly fixed to the
back of its escaped victim.

By-and-by, without even a rustle to announce
his apj)roach, a large uncouth beast, like a small
bear with extremely bandy legs, is performing
strauge gambols on the moonlit turf beneath
our iiidmg-place. After watching him long
enouiih to recognise in him a laroe badyer, he

~ O Oct"

catches a glimpse probably of my rifle- barrels,
and noiselessly as he came, so noiselessly he melts
as it were out of the moonlight into the mys-
terious shadows beyond. And so, with here and
there a glimpse of the private life of its denizens,
the long night in the forest passes away, growing
colder and colder till near the dawn.

At last there is a soimd that startles the whole
neighbourhood, and the rustling of retreating feet
tells plaiuly that, though we saw tliem not, every
sliadovv had its tenant. A crashing' of boujj^hs,
and a firm, soft tread comes direcjt to my hiding-
place ; and with straining eyes I watch, until
the outline of the great beast shall slowly emerge
from the sliadow.

Hull

are you aslee;» up there (

Coi

down, and have a pull at my flask. No more
chance of a tijrer to-night.'

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326

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN.

:• ■

\ : ;■

And so the vi^il ends. The great beast was
our friend M. The night had worn to morning,
and, slowly unbending my stiffened limbs, I let
myself down to terra firrna^ glad that the watch
was over, even though it ended in nothing better
than a nip of eau-de-vie.

Once more after this I watched the stars
brighten and fade in the cold grey of morning,
waiting alone for a tiger which nev'er came ;
then, fearful lest the wet season should set in,
and prevent our return to Tiflis, I bade adieu to
my friends, and on January 11 we started on the
return journey to Tiflis.

As soon as our cart came round the sky grew
gradually blacker, and with the first jingle of the
horses' bells the patter of the first instalment of
the rainy season was mingled. From the time we
turned our faces to Tiflis until the moment when
Ivan left me in tlie baths of that city, waiting till
he should bring clean clothes in which to attire
me for my reappearance in a partially civilised
world, the weather went steadily from bad to worse,
and discomfort grew to actual misery.

I will not weary my readers with more than
a few glimpses of the return journey, of which the
first shall be the suburbs of Lenkoran. As we
approached them the road became so bad that our
horses could barely proceed at a walk ; and, looking
ahead, we found the street a morass, bridged with

RETURN TO TIF LIS.

327

planks, through which we could by no means pass.
At the sides of the road, where the trottoirs had
been, women, with their scanty clothing tucked up
round their waists, were taking a mud batli and
walking exercise simultaneously, with this trifling
drawback, that, should they miss the trottoir, they
would probably disappear in the dark profound
beyond. This was, of course, an exceptionally bad
state of things, and we were told only happened
during the Srst day or two of the rainy sea-.on,
after which the streets got better, the filth accu-
mulated during the summer having been washed
away by the rains.

Wishing the ' white doves ' a merry time of it,
we with great difficulty got our vehicle out of the
road on to the steppe ; and here, though progress
was slow, it was at least better than it had
been. Two days spent in alternately being dragged
over morasses by our liorses, and drngging them
and the cart out of the same, did not sweeten our
tempers, I presume ; and ii perhaps for this

that a luckless I'ersian suffered ;it Adji Kabool.
Here in the early morning I was sittiriu' huddled
up in my bourka amongst my luggage in the
extremely narrow space allotted to one of two
passengers in a Russian post-cart, when a 'tcl. spar^
calmly pushed me to one side, and seated himself
comfortably beside me, without ceremony or apol<)«■^
On incpiiring what he meant, and explaining uuit

Irii

hi
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32i5

SHOKES Oh THE CASPIAN.

'is

AV • i

I 'i

\^y-

the post-curt was liirul ))y hil', piiid for by me, and
intended only to be tenanted by me and mine tlie
intruder just deigned to tell me that he was a
' tehapnr/ had a right to travel in any cart he chose,
and meant to travel in mine, whether I liked it or
not. Now, if this were true, it v/ould not be an
additional attraction in Russian post-travelling;
but I fimcy it was not : so I requested my would-be
fellow-traveller to make him.self scarce fit once,
and as he persisted in refusing, I hoisted him into the
mud by the wheels. As soon as he recovered an
upright position he clapped his old flint-lock rifle
to his shoulder, and putting the nuizzle almost into
my face, deliberately pulled the trigger. Luckily
for me, in his fall all the powder which should
have formed the train to the charge had been spilt.
Moreover, his barrel was choked with good hold-
ing clay, so that, taken all together, had the piece
not missed Are, the danger would have been greater
to him than to me. After this display of rage and
impotence, he turned to the peo])le of the station,
and so worked u})on them by his arguments that,
had I not taken the reins out of my yemstchik's
hands and driven ofl^, whether they would or not,
I am persuaded I should have been detained perhaps
for days at Adji Kabool, until I could communi-
cate with Tiflis or Lenkoran.

To travel by post-road in this part of the Cau-
casus, and indeed all over Russia I believe, a man

RETURA- TO TIFLIS.

y-9

should be as voluble, as lou(l-ton<^ued, and as i)ro-
fane as the proverbial Billmgsgate fisherwoiiian or
a certain Englisli ]\I. F. H. 1 wot of. The only
kind of ltmo:ua<»:e a Russian servant, most of all u
Russian car-boy, can understand, is loud swearhig.
From his childhood he has been accustomed to it.
His mother's term of endearment to him as she
dandled him on her knees was probably ' ach te
sukin sin' (ah, you son of a she-dog), about equiva-
lent in English to 'you little nionkey.' His mas-
ter's name for him when good-tempered was 'rosbol-
nik' or'mashanik' (thief or scoundrel), and heldm-
self, in addressing his horses, of which he is often
extremely fond, and to which he seldom applies the
lash, heaps on them epithets of the fondest endear-
ment and foulest abuse at one and the same time.

Our experiences of post-travel on our return to
Tiflis were of the very worst. At Aksu in mid-
day we were refused horses on the old plea that
there were none — an excuse utterly untrue, as a
glance at the interior of the stables assured us.
Reiterated demands were met by sulky refusals, and
on following the station-mus^er to his own private
room I was reminded that the guests' chamber was
iny place, whither he would come if sent for. On
sending my man he found the door barred, and all
further interview denied. This little trick was more
than 1 coidd stand, so crossing the yard to the
fellow's room I demanded the horses or the com-

ri,

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I

ill

:li«

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330

SHORES OF THE CAS P LIN.

lii

; I

i:n'

pljiint-lHH)k — a book in which travellers luive a right
sit all times to enter their grievances, which is kei)t
affixed by a seal to the table in the guest-room,
and which is the sole check upon the absolute
power of a station-master. To remove this or
to refuse to produce it, is the greatest crime the
station-master ;. an connnit, and would, if rei)orted,
ensure his eviction from his post. But hi this case
the man remained firm, being deep in a drinking*
bout witli his yemstchiks, and refused point blank
to produce either hoi'ses or book, or to let me in.
r'eeling' convinced that I had Russian la^v on my
side, and that the fellow, for his own sake, dare not
make any report, [kicked his door down, and taking
him by the arm brought him across to the guests'
room, where a cou])leof Armenian merchants in the
same plight as myself were kicking their heels and
cursing the cause of their needless delay. Having
got my enemy into the room, I had the doors shut,
showed him some letters of uitroduction T had
"svith me, and then telling him I knew to what he was
liable if I reported his refustd to produce the com-
plaint-book, I began to solemnly roll up the cuffs
of my Tscherkess costume, preparatory, as I in-
formed him, to administering to him severe corporal
punishment. The letters, my knowledge of Russian
post-road rules, and })erhaps a certain air of meaning
what I said, had their effect, and in a minute the
other side of the Asiatic charactt;r was revealed, the

Ill

Kh:TUJ<i\ 10 TIF us.

il^

insolent brutality .i^ivin^- AVJiy to (lis_oiistin,«'-, fawning-
complavsiinco as if by magic. But I knew my man
too well to let liim «;o, so that, havin«;- made him
order two troikas, one for ourselves and one for
the Armenians, 1 kept him a close prisoner until
the carts were actually at the door, when, witli
many thanks from my fellow-travellers, I left Aksu

rejoicin*^.

These fellow-travellers cliiiuied my help aj^ain
at the next station, alleoinn- that they were co-
reliirionii'ts of mine, beini** members of the Pro-
testant Chnrcli at Shemakha. It s.eems that forty
years ago their sect was founded at Shusha, my
informants said, by English missionaries, but the
names they gave them, T.arambe' and 'Fanther,'
sounded very un- English in my ears. Shortly after
the founding of the Protestant Church at Shusha,
the non-l*rotestant Armenians rose against their
newly-converted brethren, and induced ihe Czar to
have them expelled from Shusha, whence they
migrated to Shemakha, and there founded a
church, in wh'ch they now celebrate live services
a week, and number 500 of the richest inhabitants
of Shemakha amongst their congregation.

From Shemakha I sent a teh'gram on to Ca])t.

Lyall or Mr. G , I ibrget which, friends of

mine at Tiflis, to announce my return, and to pre-
vent my letters being sent on to Lenkoraji. To
give some idea of the Kussian tekigrapli service

I'll

33^

CHORES OF THE CASPIAN.

iif

N I

I :

between Tiflis and the Caspian I may here mention
that, thou^i^h I took many long days to get from
Shemakha to Tiflis, that telegram only arrived
simultaneously with me, whilst one sent from
liaku, three weeks before, arrived two dtiys after
me ; and though I travelled by the post-road,
and spent some days shooting en route, a letter
posted by me m Lenkoran just before I started
arrived long after me. So much for internal com-
munication on this side the Caucasus.

Day after day we plodded on, getting dirtier,
more starved and ill every day ; travelling often
as much as sixteen hours in an open cart at a
stretch, the best travelling we ever accomplished
being 132 versts in that time. At Shemakha we
stopped to shoot antelopes, as much for the sake of
the pot as for the sport. A day's rest and a good
dinner had become absolutely necessary ; and though
the accommodation at Shemakha was so bad as to
make the rest impossible, we obtained tlie dinner.
Thus refreshed, we turned our faces on Friday
morning towards Tiflis, with a lixed resolve to
make no fiu'ther stoppage in the thirty- six hours'
travellin"' which remained between ourselves and
the good things of that place.

For the last ten days my leading idea, my favour-
ite day-dream, the ultima Thule of my ambition, had
been a hot tub. To sit and boil in a hot bath of
sulphur water and get out a clean man into a clean

RETURN TO TIFIJS.

333

sliirt, had been the one luxury in life to look for-
ward to ; and now that it was within thirty-six
hours' travel of me, I felt almost content as I curled
myself up in my cart, though snow and rain soaked
in through my ragged old clothes, through which
the wind cut almost to my backbone, and the
red mud splashed up, plastering eyes and mouth,
until we had passed beyond all semblance of
humanity. But there were to be more trials yet.
As we neared Akstapha the night had fallen, and,
weary with perpetual motion, I had cowered down
under my bourka in a vain endeavour to hide my-
self from the cold and doze away the tedious hours.
The weather was abominably raw ; an icy night
fog, blown by a cutting breeze that met us in the
teeth, wetted and chilled us to the bone. The hour
was between nine and ten, the moon had not yet
risen, and the night was starless. The road was
through the hills, and needless to say heavy and
hard to find in the darkness.

Suddenly I was roused by my man's voice
calling me to get out at once. Peeping, half-asleep,
from under my rugs, I could see very little of any-
thing except that my man and the yemstchik had
both got down and the cart had stopped. ' What
is the matter? ' I asked, feeling for my revolver, and
expecting the oft-promised highwaymen. One of
the horses has fallen down,' came the answer.
Cross at being disturbed for so little, and not

I !

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'li'f 1

I'! ili-'i '

i! 'Oli!

334

S no RES OF THE CASPIAN.

wniitinf]^ to i^ot my stock in;i;ofl foot wot in tho mud, I
wns curlirif!^ mysolf up fioain with a sulky in] unc-
tion to tlic men to let the horse «T;et up and be
lijui^cd to him, when, to my horror, 1 felt the cart
tiltin;»; over in n way that threatened soon to reverse
our relative positions. In a moment I was wide
awake. The cart was already so tar over that I
was obliged to jump the way it was fallin;]^, and my
next sensation was that of travelling through space,
such as one sometimes experiences in a dream.
This came to an end with a jerk, and my next
recollection is of being dug out of the mud at the
bottom of a considerable precipice from among the
debris of boxes, broken cart and horses, which had
accompanied me in my fall, l^y the greatest good
luck nothing had struck me, though the heavy
built cart had fallen so close as to pin down the
corner of my bourka, which was still on my
shoulders. Luckily, too, only one of the horses
was so far damaged as to be unable to proceed.
There was no village within reach. To walk on to
Akstapha in the then state of the roads and weather
would have been a wearisome trudge, even if we
could have persuaded the driver to leave his horses
and guide us, or ourselves to leave our belongings
in his charge, which we could not do.

Here, then, 1 had a splendid opportunity of
witnessing the really wonderful handiness of Rus-
sian peasants in extremities. Thanks to our love

RETURN TO TIF LIS.

335

of tobacco we harl with us a box of brimstone
matches ; o^rovellin<T about by the lin^ht of wliich
Ave retrieved all that was not utterly destroyed of
our luggage, and by means of old ropes, pocket-
handkerchiefs, and what not, so tied and spliced
together the broken harness, that after two hours'
work in that bitter winter nijxht we manasred to
extricate our cart and make yet another start for
Tiflis.

Beyond Akstapha, snow had evidently been
falling for some time past, and still continued to
fall until we reached Tiflis. Every verst showed
us deeper drifts, and at the last stjition from Tiflis
the drivers, in defiance of their master's orders, re-
fused to get out of their warm corners to drive us
through the wintry night to the end of our journey.
After many threats and much persuasion one was
prevailed on to mount the box, and though we only
proceeded at a snail's pace, we console 1 ourselves
with the thought that every minute brought us
nearer our bourne. At last, when we had got
some three versts on the way, the horses were
brought to a standstill by their driver, who calmly
announced his intention of returninix.

We were already half-frozen and irritable from
constant mishaps, so that his announcement was
not very cheerfully received, and every effort was
made to urge him on. Everything else failing, in
an evil moment Ivan persuaded me to use the

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336

SffORES OF THE CASPIAN,

roimnon If iissijm nrn;iinirnt, and, if'lio would not take
copock.s, «2;ivo hlni stick. He took a very fair
thuinpinn; as stolidly as an ox, and then utterly
nonplussed me by quietly liandinu; me the reins,
and decampinjTj into the darkness Ix fore I had time
to think.

Never in my life did I feel in a more awkward
predicament. The roads were deep with snow ;
the night dark as jntch ; the way unknown, over
n succession of hills down the vsides of any of which
one false step might at any time hurl us. It would
never do to let the rascal go. As quickly as we
could Ivan and I dragged our team round and,
risking everything, galloped hard in the direction
of our runaway into the darkness behind, until, as
luck would have it, we nearly ran over him. Hav-
ing found him, all manner of bribes were devised,
every fearful threat conjured up that our imagina-
tions could furnish us with, and by the joint pres-
sure of hope of reward and fear of punishment we
at last got the sulky brute on to his seat, and at
about six in the morning drove into Tiflis.

True to my resolution, I made the cart set me
down at the baths ; large subterranean places, in
which, in an extremely hot atmosphere, you may
bathe yourself in little baths of natural hot water,
."^trongly impregnated with sulphur, after which a
swarthy little Tartar, nearly naked, comes and,
kneeling on your chest, kneads your body with his

Bfl

RETURN TO TIF US.

337

clenched hands, thumps and smacks you, pulls out
your different joints and replaces them, making your
fingerscrack in a marvellous manner, and finally dries
and leaves you, feeling as if you had just had the
«;loves on with the celebrated l*rofessor I»at MulMns,
of Panton Street renown. Meanwhile, my servant
had taken away every rag I possessed, and in a
statv; of hap})y, cleanly nudity I sat awaiting that
greatest of hoons to a >veary wayfarer, a clean shirt
and an invitation to breakfast. i>oth arrived in
due time, and feeling once more that I was a few
steps removed from a Tartar beggar in appearance
as well as in feelings, I betook myself to an Eng-
lishman's house, vowing that, if I could help it, my
experiences of Russian post-travelling should never
go beyond my last stoppage at the sulphur baths.

The snow-fall that now enveloped Tiflis was —
so the inhabitants told me — the heaviest they could
ever remember, and certainly never could Tiflis
have looked better than it did under the white pall
that hid all its foulness and lent such edat to
whatever beauty it possesses. For me, too, the
snowfall had its advantages, in affording me an
opportunity of witnessing the pursuit of the ante-
lope on horseback as practised by the Tartars of
Karias. About tw^o score well -mounted men, all
carrying rifles on their shoulders and a powerful
greyhound on their horse in front of the saddle,
started at an early hour for the steppe. Having

fi \

338

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN.

found a herd of antelope, they proceeded to surround
and break it up, so that the quarry mi^ht separate.
Then each man chose his own prey, and for the
first part of the day followed it slowly from place
to place, never pressing it hard enough to m{ike it
gallop any distance, yet never losing sight of it.
In this way travelling slowly over the unfrozen
snow, which ' balled ' fearfully on its pointed feet, the
antelope became wi. arj and harassed, the continual
slow pace tiring it fur more than a smart gallop,
during which the snow would not have so much
chance of clinging to the Hying feet. When the
poor little beast is sufficiently exhausted, the hunter
begins to close in, and even should the antelope
make a dash at the last it is ten to one it gets
headed by one of the hunter's comrades. If, how-
ever, it lets the Tartar get tolerably near, he drops
his hound from its place beside him for the first
time, and cheering him on with voice and example,
speedily runs down the already exhausted prey.

What puzzled me most was how the Tartars
induced their dogs to retain their equestrian posi-
tion, but I presume early training will teach the
doff as much as it does the man.

Whilst staying in Tiflis, I first heard the report of
the ' black death ' or black small -pox, as the Russians
called the plague which was devastating Astrachan;
and fearing lest the ptory should be true that
in was spreading with rapid strides towards Russia,

RETURN TO TIFIIS.

339

or at least, that having come from the coasts of the
Caspian I should be put in quarantine, I deter-
mined to make my way to the Black ^ea, have one
more turn at the bears of Golovinsky, and then
get back to England before the fever became pre-
valent. The Tiflis authorities made very little
difficulty, only taking my larger impedimenta
under their care, for the purpose of disinfecting
them before sending them on to England ; so that
in another day or two I found myself once more at
Poti, with my faithful Ivan the Pole still with me.

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340

THE RAINS.

CHAPTER XV.

THE RAINS.

M^i?

Poti — Chasing wild boar — Ked-deer — Turks and Cossacks — Sotcha —
Lynxes — Game in the Caucasus — A hunting party — A wounded
sow — Beautiful scene — An unexpected bag — Our ««>me — The 'evil
eye ' — Overtaken by the rains— Our tent inundated — Surrounded
by wolves — Cheerless days — A terrible catastrophe — Welcome
help — Golovinsky — A wild scene — Eluding the storm — Fording a
a torrent — A refuge — Scant supplies — Cossack cradle-song — The
Cossacks of to-day — Russian plantations — A terrible ride —
Struggling for life — Cossack loafers — Ride to Duapse — Forlorn
days — Mad wolves — Wrestling a Tartar — Laid up with fever —
Return to England.

We left Tiflis in a snow-shroud, which had, after
three days' continual fall, frozen hard. We found
Poti in her spring dress, bright with \iolets and
cyclamen. Here we were detained two days
waiting for the steamer, and it may give some idea
of the place, when I say that the second day was
passed in hunting wild boar within a verst of our
hotel, which is the centre of the town ; and so suc-
cessfully, that after plunging about in pools waist-
deep from dawn to mid-day, we carried back a tine
porker in triumph for our dinner. To help us in
the hunt we had some sixteen dogs and all the
able-bodied roughs of Poti, one of whom was armed

THE RAINS.

341

with the only specimen of an ancient bhmderhuss
which I ever saw in actual use.

The neighbourhood of Poti must at no very
distant date have been one of the most favourite
habitats of the red-deer in the whole world. The
Mingrelian nobles were all staunch preservers of
game, and it was not until Russian greed of ter-
ritory had angered them, that they in revenge for
their wrongs, real or fjincied, at the hands of their
soraewhile ally, and to de])rive that ally of his
favourite recreation, taken with or without their
consent, slew all the tall stags and graceful roe-
bucks in their land, whenever they could find
them, by foul means or fair. So it came to pass
that within the last ten years speculators have
bought cartloads of stags' horns in the neighbour-
inij ' aouls ' for a few roubles the load, and even to
v/ithin tlie last three years it was still possible to
find in out-of-the-way places ladders used to reach
from the peasants' ground-fioor to his loft, com-
posed entirely of the branching glory of the forest
king. These things are now of the past, for the
Mingrel lias discovered that stags' horns are
marketal>le commodities : native middlemen have
ferreted out every pair of antlers in the province,
and established a regular trade in these and in
boars' tusks, the n\ajority of which articles were
sent to France to be made up into the hundred and
one knicknacks with which people adorn their libra-

342

THE RAINS.

ries. Still the red -deer is by no means extinct
even now ; in proof of wdiicli a gentleiniin working
at Poti, in the capacity of a civil engineer, told me
that u few months before my arrival he had been
invited to a large shooting party on the domains of
one of the neiirhbouring princes, on which occa-
sion not less than one hundred shots were fired at
red-deer during the day, although, owing to bad
shooting, very few were bagged.

From Poti we steamed to Sotcha, where I was
entertained by the agent of a German gentleman,
^[ons. G., who stayed on the estate to protect it
throughout the late war. The danger to the pro-
perty, he informed me, was to be apprehended not
from the Turks but from the Russians, more espe-
cially the Cossacks, against whose evil doings he
inveighed very bitterly. According to my autho-
rity, wherever the Turks camped during the war,
private property was respected, and crops only
mulcted of as nuich as was necessary for the imme-
diate use of the troops. On the contrary, where-
ever the C\)ssacks were, there too was wanton
destruction. Their only excuse if remonstrated
with was, ' if we don't do it the Turks will ; '
and their officers refused to interfere. At a small
place in the innnediate neighbourhood of Sotcha, for
example — Adler or Pol Salian — the Turks never
showed their noses, and yet the place is in ruins.
No compensation was granted to any of the suf-

THE RAINS.

343

ferers from Cossack wantonness after the war by
the Government.

In Sotcha roses were in bloom when I arrived,
as well as strawberries ; and my host told me that a
few days before my arrival he gathered half a
dozen ripe strawberries in his garden, which had
ripened out of doors, and this in the beginning of
February. Up to the time of which I write there
had been no frost ^t Sotcha. The chief produce of
the neighbouring gardens are grapes, of which
several varieties grow in great luxuriance on the
slopes just above the town — if town you can call the
few houses that surround the landing-place. But
if the Governor has not been misinformed and is
not too sanguine, Sotcha has a future, and may
at no distant date develop into a second Yalta. A
little table-land on the Poti side of the town has
already been laid out in sites for villas, to be
erected as summer residences for a number of old
military officers and their families. Better still, all
the sites are bought and paid for.

During the day which 1 lost at Sotcha waiting
for horses — for of course I lost one, as every im-
patient traveller in this land of delays must be
invariably content to do — I heard agahi of the fear-
less depredations of the lynx. During the night
the dogs of Sotcha — an extremely large and in-
fluential body — were heard raising their voices in
a manner altogether unusual even with them ; and

iii

344

THE RAINS.

on inspection it was found that one large beast of
lialf sheep-dog, half setter breed, h;id been killed on
his chain by a lynx in the v^ery middle of the town,
and partially eaten where he lay.

It has been said that there is very little game
in the Caucasus, and it was partly to correct that
mistake that this book was written. To show
how for from true the assertion is, Mons. G., with
whom I was staying at Sotcha, told me that before
the Tscherkesses left the Caucasus it was their
custom to make an innual expedition to the main
chain of the mountains along the Black Sea coast,
between, say, Anapa and Sukhoum, to obtain game
to salt for winter use. On one of these expeditions
my informant accompanied seven Circassians, a
few years before their evacuation of their native
wilds ; and, during a fortnight, of which at least
a week was spent in coming and going, the eight
guns made an enormous, though b}^ no means
unusually large bag, of which one single item
was forty- two chamois. There were also bears,
ibex, mouflon, and red-deer among the slain ; and
though on this occasion they saw no aurochs,
Mons. G. assured me that he has seen some even
more recently than that.

On the second day at Sotcha, after a row with
the chief of the Cossacks, I managed to get horses
for my now formidable party, composed, with the
exception of myself and servant Ivan, of volun-

THE RAINS.

34j

tecrs from the little town we were leavini!;. Some
of tliese v<jliiiiteers, however, when the)- had it
finally ex|»laiue(! to them that my little bell-tent
would really only hold two, and those two would
certainly be my friend Mr. Dii^by F-iyall and my-
self, made up their minds wisely to stay behind;
so that in the end the party only consisted of Mr.
I . and myself, my servant Ivan, a guide Niko, an
Iineritine — whose services, had I only been lucky
enough to obtain them on my first visit, would
have l)een invaluable — Ivan Kotoff, a Russian
moujik or peasant proprietor, and a (yossack with
the horses named Kalivan ; while at Golovinsky
I added my ohl ally Stepan to the motley crew.
This was by far the largest party I had ever had
with me in the Caucasus ; and by their aid, and
the aid of Stepan's dogs, I expected to do great
things with the bears and boars of Golovinsky.

As soon, however, as we arrived at the place,
I found times had changed. Stepan had now
some work to do ; and a gruff German telegraphist
was in possession of the hut in which I had formerly
taken shelter. However, by the help of his chief's
letter of introduction to all telegraphists at the
various Caucasian stations, and thanks to my bell-
tent, I was soon fairly comfortable ; but the next
mornino' revealed a very sad state of thini'S. ^Miere
in early autunni the bears' tracks had been as thick
as leaves in N'allombrosa, there vvas not now a

I'll!

346

THE RAL\S\

single broad footprint to be seen. All the family
of Bruin was either hybernating, or had moved off
to winter quarters in some more favoured spot.
Boars, however, were as plentiful as before, and the
first day's sport gave me as fine a run with the
dogs after a wounded sow as I ever wish to have.
Crouching in a narrow track, which her kindred had
worn by frequent use through the dense covert of
blackberry bushes, I first saw her come pounding
down ui)on me in an opposite direction to that in
which I was going, and for a moment expected to
be run over by her if no worse. She saw me
luckily in time to pull up, and before she could
turn I gave her a bullet from my smooth-bore,
which lodged somewhere near her spine. After
this the dogs got round her, and snapping and
snapped at she carried the whole pack headlong
down the precipitous wooded banks at a pace that
rendered human pursuit all but hopeless. For all
that, ten minutes break-neck work, with many a
crashing fall and all too rapid slide, brought me
to a point from which I caught a glinqjse of the
old black beast brushing through a thicket, with
the dogs all over her ; and 1: rdly thinking of the
risk the pack ran, I took a snap-shot, and, as good
fortune would have it, turned her there and then
into pork.

Leaving her suspended in slings of wild-vine
tendrils beyond the reach of prowling wolves or

THE RAINS.

h\l

iuaraii(lin,n' jiickals, we koj)t aloiii;' tin; chIoo of the
clifFs until we came to the fairest site for a sports-
man's i^rave that the mind of man eouhl conceive.
Here, on tlie very summit of a j^TacefuUy rounded
hill-toj), was some three acres of grecjn sward, almost
as fine and even as an I'^no-lisli hiwn. Up to its
very edi^e rose the dense forest-trees, tln'ouo'h
and over the tops of which came glimpses of the
opalescent sea far down beneath. Here, in the morn-
ing, the soft sea-breezes shook music out of tlie
rustlini"' leaves, and in the evenin"- the leno-thenin";
shadows wove strans^e traceries on the m'ass.
Here the wild cherry-blossoms whitened the sward
m the spring-time, and in autumn the drooping
vines hung heavy clusters over the dead chiefs
tomb, in recognition of the tender care his ancestors
had bestowed upon the parent vine in days gone
by. What a ditfereuee between this breezy sunlit
hill-top and the terrible regions of brick and
mortar in which, after their narrow lilii in town,
the dead of London lie i)ent ! One could almost
echo the sentiment of a veteran fox-hunter speak-
ing of his favourite grass country as compared to
another, ' It would be better to be buried here than
live there.'

Hut in the mids' of our day-dreaming a dis-
traction of a sutHcieiitly startling nature called us
back to the present. In admiring the view we
had strolled from cu* first post of observation into

34«

THE RAIAS.

a thicket of Jilrcady budding yellow nzaleas, from
which, MS soon as we ])ut foot in it, went forth tlie
most extraordinary noises, while we found our-
selves the centre of what appeared to be an enor-
mous black shell in the very act of exploding'. A
second •'lance revealed the true nature of the black
objects that rushed frantically about on every side
of us. Unwittingly we had disturbed the rest, nay,
stepped right into the middle of the resting-place
of a big black sow and her litti'r of lively black
imps. Such a hunt after sucking pigs as followed
it would be difficult to describe. The dogs had
been sent home ; so all the work had to be done by
ourselves ; and from the small size of our prey and
the thickness of the covert, it ' is almost as easy
to catch as to shoot the succulent morsels. Most
of them escaped us, but we got enough to satisfy us ;
so, tired and fairly content, we retraced our steps.

During the rest of our stay at Golovinsky we
had excellent sport with the wild swine, killing
one boar whose head an English naturalist declared
to be the largest he had ever seen in EnoJand.
But all boar and nothing else grew monotonous ;
and after a week of this sport we struck our tents
and moved away to Yakorski, where, with hills
and woods all round us, a clear purling brook by
our side and the sea at our feet, we had good sport
till the weather changed. The only drawback was
that the tent which was meant to hold two had to

THE RAINS,

349

hold four, and owing to accidents and oversiglits,
our o^ear was of the most primitive nature. We
had one enormous caldron, in which we hoiled our
pig-soup or our tea, as the case might he, and
from this, when its contents had somewhat cooled,
we, sitting in a circle round it, had to hale our
dinner with spoons constructed hy some genius
from the hark of the willow. The process was
rather slower, owing to the incommodious shape
of the spoons, than lapping would have been, but
it was the only way. Amongst the many things
for which I have to be grateful to the Indo-
European Company is the one teacup which did
service for the four. This was neither more nor
less than a broken insulator which someone found,
with a piece of wood inserted in the hole at the
bottom to prevent leakage.

Living in this primitive fashion, we [)assed
several days, and enjoyed fair sport ; the large
supply of meat which we had hung on the beech-
tree nearest our tent, attracting nightly bands of
jackals, who formed a cordon round us and kept
our dogs in a state of excitement the whole
twenty-four hours. Apart from the sport, my man
Niko was almost sufficient amusement in himself.
A wilder, less tutored fellow could not be found,
unless it were among savages ; full of supersti-
tion and stories of the chase, he always kept us
amused by the camp-fire. Amongst other things

I i

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i: ;i ■.!

350

THE KA/AS.

ill which he lirmly lu'liovcd, ;is do iiiosf of liis
pooplo, wjis tho ' ovll oyc' He liad ii ^niri witli
him, with Avhich he told lis that last year he liad
wounded eijihteeii wild l)oars in succession without
brinjrinjjr nnv to \y^)f. Alarmed hv this l)ad luck,
he went to the ' wise man ' of his villaoe, and hy
him was reminded that the <f\\\\ had been lent for
some time to a friend. This friend possessed an
'evil eye.' The only remedy was to secure a g;uu
helongin*!; to his friend and s))oil it, after which
his own gun would return to its natural good
behtaviour. Niko took the ' wise m.an's ' advice, and
I presume paid him for it, surreptitiously spoilt
his friend's gun, and from that time his shooting
improvefl rapidly, until he was again the Niko that
he used to he. Nothing I could say would con-
vince him of the folly of his story; and so much
did he believe in it that he even tried to persuade
me, when one of my guns went Avrong through
an overcharge of powder, that the ' evil eye ' had
been at Avork on my own weapons also.

But after a few days the clouds began to gather
blacker and blacker amongst the mountains, and
the rainy season, which we believed we had left
behind us by the Caspian, was ujion us with a
rush. On Friday, February 15, the rain swept
over us in torrents ; but, though the hills were all
hidden, and the creaking and groaning of the trees
almost frightened us, whilst the ground underfoot

THE PAIXS.

lu'cmne a morass, tlic ])cll-tent kc)>t us fairly dry.
A temporary lull in the storm on Fridny afternoon
tempterl us out of our shelter ; and, though the
woods were dripping and full of the music of a
hundred newborn rivulets, we essayed a farewell
hunt. The rain seemed to have aroused all the
dormant energies of the porcine race ; and, at one
time, the noise they made amoi.;^^>t the fresh pools
as we came on them unawares was rather sug-
gestive of a morning in a cattle-market than one
s[)ent in a mountain forest.

It is diflicult to believe how wild swine swarm
in some parts of this coast, warrening the bushes
with their runs, and covering every marshy place
with their bathing-holes. Once we were fairly in
the forest the heavens opened their sluices again,
and before long our clothes were so sodden as to
be almost too heavy to carry, our boots parting
like wet blotting-paper ; and when, weary and
drenched, we got back to camp, we found the
camp-fire submerged, and our bell-tent merely an
awning over a pond about a foot deep. The men
had neglected to entrench our position, and we
were fairly washed out. Luckily my aversion to
beetles had induced me to have my bed raised
some two feet from the ground, and, cowering on
this, we spent our time until Sunday morning. To
make a fire was impossible. There was not a dry
spot of earth within a square mile from our tent

i::i.

35:

THE RAINS.

M ,i

• i

3 m\

tiil

1 1

on wliidi to lay it ; iiiid, oven had we found a dry
spot, the blindinfi; slieets of rain woidd have wa.'^hed
it away as soon as laid. No lire meant very little
food, as none oi' us coidd eat ra\v wild swine's
flesh, and we had very little else.

In the ni(>ht a lot of wolves descended from
the nionntains, and, attracted l)y the smell of our
]»eoeh-tree larder, eame rij^ht into the camp, their
weird howlin^'s, as they answered one another from
point I'o point, sounding very eerie in the storm.
Worse than that, Niko, who had l)een hunted by
wolves only a year before, within a mile or two of
this spot, got extremely nervous, and, worse still,
made ti e other men so. This, they said, was tin;
monti) in whi.?h wolves were most to be dreaded ;
and, in a i)ack, wirli no fire to scare them, there
was TiO certainty that they might not invade our
tent during the night-watches.

To <>'et back to the teleo-i-anhist's hut was our
iirst idea* thouu'li, rememberin<>: iti frau'ile natui'e,
I had my doubts whether theiv was much better
accommodation there than with us. Tins, how-
ever, was rendered impossible. During the night
the mountain streams had risen, and a man who had
attempted to cross them in the evening was all but
drowned before lie coidd get back to shore. At
the outset of the storm our Cossa':^k, with tln^
horses, had deserted and left us to our fate, so that
there was nothing for it but to sit perched like

THE RAIXS.

353

■■*

<nvls oil our littlo platform in the bell-tent, and
smoke nway the time until tVie rain should cease.
My wretched men liad no chfino;e of garments, so
that for the two days they had to sit and sleep in
their sodden clothes, and nothino- but constant
j*pplication to their l)eloved vodka-l)ottle could
have saved the poor devils from fever. During
that last night the raoe of the storm increased,
and, though our tent aaus v\ a \\'onderfully
sheltered place, it rocked and tugged at its moor-
ings in an al.arming manner, whilst at last it ceased
to be waterproof, and our roof resembled nothing
so much {IS the rose of an immense watering-pot.
I think on Saturday night I must have gone to
sleep in spite of the streams irom above and the
howling wolves outside, foi- in tlie morning 1 was
rpiite startled by a gleam of sunshine, and, roused,
J fancy, by the cessation of that perpetual patter-
ing of rain-drops which had lulled me to sleep.
As 1 moved my stifl' limbs my clothes cracked with
the frost that had followed the rain, and our tent
itself was hard frozen, while outside the sun was
shining through a heavy snow-storm going on in
the second rano-c of mountains behind and "'ivina'
l)ut a very cheerless light to the miserable scene
around. Still, it was sunshine, and as such stirred
us to frcv^h endeavour, as nothing but sunshine
can stir a human being. I)y dint of drainage and
a few sticks we had ke})t moderately dry, we

A A

354

THE RAINS.

i:i

ii;!

managed to light a iire, altlioiigh, except for the
few feet drained for the fire-phice, there was still
no dry spot for the sole of a man's foot. But
the crushing blow was to come. The rain had
done worse than wet us — it had washed down the
meat from our larder. The watchful wolves had
been I'ewarded for their patience, and we were left
breakfastless !

Very miserabh^ wretches must we have appeared
when rescue came in the form of oui- retiu-ninu;
Cossack, late that afternoon, with some strong
horses to carry ns safely through tlie rapidly-sub-
sidinjr torrents : and a bare-leo'i>ed ride on bare-
backed Cossack horses, through streauis which
wetted, and nipj^ing north-easters that froze, our
half-starved bodies, was no pleasant finale to cur
adventure. It was luu'dly to be wondered at that
when we did get to shelter my men told me they
had had enough sport for some time to come, and
meant to return to Duapse ,ms soon as possible. I
my.self was no longer as keen as I had been, and
it was agreed that we should gradually make our
way to Duapse, stopping for one last hunt, if only
to supply us with food, at the ruins of Ileiman's
Datch.

On February 19 we bade adieu to Golovinsky ibr
the last time, and since then its l)ay of wooded hills,
with the tJiree tall blasted trees marking the vspot
where my first bear fell, has been only a memory

THE RALXS.

355

to tem[)t me back. 1 sliould like to see it once
iiiorc, with its glorious cone-shaped tulip-tree in full
blossom ; its jungles of rose-l)ushes, whose enor-
mous berries testified to the size of its perished
blooms, in the perfect beauty of summer ; its great
forests of chestnut decked with spires of flov/ere ;
and its long stretches of rhododendron and azalea
in their summer dress. It must indeed l)e lovely
then ; and if the fever were only a possible and not
an a] )Solutely certain conse(jueuce of the enjoyment
of its wonderful beauty, the [)leasure would be worth
the risk.

J hit the wintry scene around us now was very
different. Above, the raii'iied clouds hunu; black
and threatening. Out at sea, the waves were for
some distance yellow with the influx of tiu'bid
mountain torrents. Trees were hauo-inii' their
heavy dripping heads, broken and mutilated by
the three days' storm. 'Die sea, too, had been at
wild Avork <lurin"' the ni'iht ; and Avhen the Jilack
Sea does Avake to mischief it is a demon in its gusty
rage. The shore was strewn everywhere with drift-
wood, and over the carcass of an unhap])y stranded
porpoise eagles Avere poising and soaring. Tavo of
my little [)arty had a touch oi' the fever, and my
own throat was sore ;.nd swollen, so that the
tonsils seemed almost to choke me if 1 Tuade any
unwonted exertion. It was evidently time to get
home. At Ileiman's Datch a forest lire had

A A -1

:1(

356

THE RAIMS.

recently r5i<^ed, and no game could hi; obtained for
the larder, so that we were almost without provi-
sions.

Takinjx all these things into (consideration, we
determined next morning to go straight on to
])u{H)se, and give uj) any further hope of shooting.
Thus resolving, Ave built uj) a lire of drift-wood
under the old flooring, and lying round it dreamed
of home, dry clothes, and good dinners. Ahis ! that
good resolutions should always be formed too late.
^^'llen morning came, like a nightmare came uj)on
lis that cicaking and groaning of the trees we had
learned to know so well ; that rush and babble of
waters that meant imprisonment for a starved-out
garrison. The tiny rill l)elo\v the ruin, which the
day before had been nowhere ankle-deej), was now
boiling and foaming with a rage })erfectly ludicrous
in such a l)aby river, and Avith a force tiiat made it
almost imfordable. Not a moment was to be lost,
and in spite of the pitiless storm Ave determined to
})ush on foot along the shore to the next Cossack
station for horses before aa'c Avere hopelessly
hennned in by the mountain-streams.

It Avas already doubtful if we Avere not too late ;
so leaving Ivan the Pole at the ruin to guard our
effects, my young friend L., Ivan Kotofi". and
" myself, shouldered our suiall kits and trudged away
breakfastless OA'er the wet shingle. It was heavy
going over the yielding ])eacli, laden as we were

THE RAINS.

557

A\ itli bourkas and what not in tliat blinding- rain,
and f was tliankful when I saw my friend L.
safely at the end of it. Yoang- as he was, I am
l)oiuid to say he made less trouble of it than our
burly Russian fisherman, Avhose red beard kept
wau'oinir the whole time, and whose com])laints
were the harshest sound even in that stormy seene.

At Selenik's Datch we found the stream that
there empties itself into the sea swollen beyond re-
cognition, and divided into two, forming two small
cataracts, which hurtled along the big boulders in
a way that was a marvel to those who had oidy
seen it in its days of restful calm. Kotoff at once
pronounced it unfordable. and, being our guide, the
others unluckily would not listen to my arguments,
though at considerable risk I Inicked them l)vfordin«'-
the first stream, which Avas more than waist deep,
by myself. Naturally, though I was several times
all l)ut washed off luv feet, and to lose my footino-
would in all ])n»bal.ility have been to lose my life,
it won Id have been simple enough to have crossed
lind we all linked ourselves one with the other,
and together bn listed the torrent. But the Rus-
sians were white-livered, and would not come, so
that I had to wade back again ; and wet thryu"ii,
disgusted and hungry, with my throat as I knew in
a dangerous state, 1 felt \ery like' throwing up the
sponge.

After a v\eary ti'au.i[> through the long wet

35«

77/A' A' A /.VS.

covert, Kotot!' f'oiiiHl ns ji dismantlod cowshed on
the Selenik property. Here we kiudled a poor
iire, and tried in vain to dry the clothes which the
rain, driven through the ])roken roof, soaked as fast
as we dried tliem.

Our only supplies were three or four handsful
of rice, and we had a two days' ap])etite to appease.
Hunting about in the cowshed, we found an old
paint-pot, and having cleansed it by burning,
patched its leaks with clay, and boiled in it the rice
and the few bunches of sorrel which we found
grovv'ing near, we made our first meal since noon of
the preceding day. What with the unpleasant taste
which the i)ot possessed and imparted to what was
put in it, together with tlie naturally disagreeable
flavour of the coarse sorrel, it was all we could do
to eat the mess when made, in spite of hunger, and
the root of horse-radish which we boiled with our
areens to jiive them a flavour. After this we brewed
our last pinch of te;i in the same pot, and imme-
diately regretted the waste, as the horse-radish
flavour so fur prevlouiinated that the addition of tea
to the water was useless.

In all our distress we had one consolation. I
had by great good luck saAcd a box of really first-
rate cigars which I picked u]> in Tiflis ; and with
these to comfort us. young L. and myself hud-
dled together in a corner where there was more
wall and fewer crannies tlian elsewhere, and prt;-

THE RAINS.

359

pared to make a night of it, while the men hiy
huddled in their bourkas. ^^otliing save the voiees
of the storm and the si)luttering of the fire, whieh
the rain soon extinguished, broke the sullen still-
ness of the night.

It was not a cheerful end to my shooting ex-
pedition ; and again the truth of the Russian pro-
verb, which the men sometimes muttered, appeared
a possibility, ' the cliase is worse than slavery.'

During the night one of the men sang us some
wild Cossack sono-s, one of which I had often heard
the women crooning parts of before. \Yhether it
was that the wild forms and scenes that were round
me lent them a beauty the words do not really
possess, or whether there is in fact some charm in
this cradle-soncr of a warlike race, in some things

~ Jo

not unlike our borderers of two centuries ago, it
seemed at the time very impressive. I will there-
fore try to help my readers to judge for themselves,
from a translation of Poushkiu's verse*;, which, if it
does not couvey all the spirit of the origiual, is at
least a close transcript of the words luid metre.

COSSACK CRADLE-SONG.

Sleep, my darling boy, serenely,

Bui-oosh-kie-baiou,
While the still moon, calm and queenly,

Gleams thy cradle througli.
1 will rise and tell thte legends,

Chiiunting rhymes thereto ;
Ah, thine heavy eyes are closing,

Bai-oosh-kie-baiou.

360

THE RAL\S.

Neath tlie rocks grim waves art; sweeping-

O'er them glides tlie Turk :
(Jomes tlie vengeful Tscherkess creeping,

Wliots an hungry dirk.
Peace ! thy father, biittle-hardened,

Keei)S watch keen and true.
Sleep then, darling, sleep .securely,

J3ai-oosh-kie-b;iiou.

Know thou, too, that day.s are Hearing,

Loud with war's alarms.
Thou shalt spring to horse unfearing,

Bearing warrior's arms.
I'll weave charms upon thy saddle

With a silken clue :
Sleep, my ba})y, sleep, my heart's blood,

JBai-oosh-kie-baiou.

Cossack to the core I read tliee.

Hero-like thou'lt stand :
To the field myself I'll lead thee—

Child ! dost press my hand %
Ah, the bitter tears in secret,

Tender mothers rue ;
Sleep, my angel, stilly, sweetly,

Bai-oosh-kie-baiou.

Ah, the bitter grief, the sorrow,

Comfortless to wait !
Each morn praying for the morrow,

All night guess thy fate. *

I shall dream thy days are wasted,

Pining fond and true —
Sleep — cares all as yet untasted —

Bai-oosh-kie-baiou.

Round thy neck, my boy, I'll fasten,

Ere thy path be trod,
Relics rare thy life to chasten,

And to lead to God,

THE RALXS.

Tender lieurt, grow strong for peril,

Be to niem'ry true !
Now, sleep on — -wild days are coming-

Bai-oosh-kie-baiou !

16 1

The Avords ' bai-oosli-kie-baiou ' are merely tlie
refrain of the song, and a« nntransLatable as our
'liilhiby,' so that I have left tlieni in the orighial.

From scraps of songs whieli I have from time
to time heard crooned in the Crimea and elsewhere,
I should almost imamne that Poushkin's woi'ds
here translated are only a remodelled and completed
form of souie popular cradle-song in use in his time
amonu' the Cossacks.

I am sadly afraid the Cossacks are no longer "the
romantic personages they were when the poet wrote
of them. ' Ilichard's occupation's gone ' may be said
of them. There is no one left for them to fiaht,
and their existence as Cossacks would lack an
object were it not for their duties as postuien.
They are as rough as ever, but not, I sliould say, as
ready with their weapons. Their love of cattle-
lifting can no longer be legitiuiately gratified, and
I fear I have cause to add tliat it has deiivnerated to
the level of petty ])ilfering.

Singino' and smokinsi; we i^assed the nialit,
trying in vain to still the voices of our unappeased
appetites with the dull narcotic which refused to
numb our pain. The rahi had partially ceased at
dawn, and with that wonderful rapidity which

362

THE RAL\S.

clmractcriscs thoir fall as well as tlietr rise, the nioun-
taiii torrents, -wliicli had been our "aolers the ninht
helbre, had now sunk to such a degree that arm in
arm we just managed to struggle through.

Once free from our ])rison, wltli the j^rospect of
breakfast and horses at the next plantation, even
Ivan pulled himself together, and before midday we
were all lying rolled u]) in borrowed rugs, Avhileour
clothes were dried, and our api)etites appeased by a
meal of black bread. This was all we could jxet,
for, like ourselves, Koylor's Datch had been in a
state of siege, and if the rain continued was likely
to remain so.

These Russian plantations in the Caucasus are
terribly unremunerative I am told, in spite of the
richness of the soil. I think the reason is chiefly
that they are very much neglected by their owners,
no ca])ital being ex})ended on them ; in addition to
which there is no market for their produce within
reach, and no reasonable roads anywhere. M(ji'e-
over, fever demoralises the workmen, and the wild
swine devastate the crops.

Whilst refreshing ourselves at Koylor's Datch,
we sent for horses, intending to make all speed for
Duapse ; and to our great joy the weather cleared a
little in the afternoon, so that when the horses and
the Cossack sjuide arrived we were able to swing
ourselves into dry saddles and ])roceed forthwith.

Between our starti)ig })oint that afternoon and

mi: KAL\S.

363

tilt! Cossiiek station, at wliicli we liopcd to pass tlic
iiili'ht, a mountain stivani largur than most of its
fellows cinptiod itself into tlie wea, and it was of
this stream that we were most afraid. The Cossaek
wlio l)roii<5]it the horses reported it extremely liii>ii,
hut in one phice still fordahle. so tluit it was with
eyes fixed anxiously on the sky that we hurried on.
My youn<^ friend L. had hccome so far knockc^l up
that he thought it wiser to stay at Koylor s Dutch,
from whence I was o'lad to hear that he cventuidly
got safe hack to Sotcha, and thence to Tiflis.

For the first verst or so of the sixteen we had to
travel hefore niohtfall, the weather kept clear and
hright, after which it grew suddenly liiurky ar.d
overcast. The sea, muddy and discoloured near the
shore hy the luiwonted access of turhid fresh water^
spread itself out in broad streaks of vivid green and
Oxford blue in the distance. The waves rose apace,
and came washing right under our horses' feet till
they touched the cliif that walled us in beyond.
Thunder began tonuitter, and the whole under-sky
seemed to grow into waving plumes of dark purple
smoke. Then the rain came aij-ain, with sheet
lightning, near thunder, and little drifts of snow.
Avhich seemed strangely out of place with the vivid
lightning. By this time the cold had grown so
intense that I was glad to fasten my rapidly
stiffening bourka round my neck and l)ury myoclf
in its voluiiiiinr.H folds. Suddenly the snow and

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IMAGE EVALUATION
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23 WFST MAIN STREET

WW$rER,N.Y. 14510

(716) •72-4S03

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364

THK RAINS.

tlu! tliiiiKlcr ccjised, .'uui I'or ten iiiiniitos tliere was
w TL'spite, the sky i^rowini^' more wild and eerie every
moment. Wliat with the fury of sky and sea. th(*
liorses became so })anie-stricken as to he ahnost
beyond our control. Then the sun, after bein<»'
Ions'' hidden, showcci himself low down on tlie
waves — for it was already five o'clock, ant! owin^
to the storm nearly as dark as nii;ht. In shining-
out now he only added to the horrors of the scene
the most <^hastly i)ur|)le face ever sun put on. And
no wonder, for he was peering through a hailstorm,
which s(K)n reached us, whitening the waves with
its volleys of ice-bullets as it advanced.

Never before or since have I seen such a hail-
storm. The stones gave n^ positive pain as they
struck our fiices and hands, and were as large on
the average as the bullets of my 'e.\[)ress.' .Mean-
while the thun<lerstorm had conniienced anew, and,
while the litj-htniim' Hashed with extreme bril-
liancy so near us as to be d ^ngerous, the voice of
the thunder ;du\ost drowned all other sounds.
Alas! in the intervals between the thunderclaps
we now beii'an to hear anoth»'r voice — the voice of
tjursflino", fijihtini'' waters, and of the heavy stones
and tree-trunks whirled along by them in their
tierce career seaward.

When at last the stream came in sight, its
appearance was no more inviting than its voice ;
but from its great breadth for a mountain stream, I

THE RAIXS.

365

iiidood it was not so flcci) as its turlnd jipnearanco
led one to in'lievi'. Deep or shallow, it had to he
crossed. The (.'ossaek said he knew the ford, and
oit*ere<l to lead the way ; and, after all, its wild
foaniino-s were little worse tlian the hailstorm
that ra^^ed around. So. when \w ])lun;ie(l in,
leadinn^ the ])ackli()rse hehind liini, I followed
(dose on his heels, entirely trnstinii' to his local
knowledge for a safe passa^^e. Luckily for him,
tlM> Cossack was (^dy a featherweii-ht, while the
horse he hestrode was one of the lar«iest and most
])owerful 1 had seen <lurin«j,- my travels ; so that,
thou'di the i>ackhorse Avith his burden was innne-
diately u})set and washed away, the man, clingin*,^
to his horse, which made a «;allant swim for it,
o()t safe t(/ shore a lon«;- way down stream. I
was less lucky than the Cossack, Avhose fate I had
not seen ; for, while half blinded by a vivid Hash of
lin;htninu'. my wretched little screw toppled over into
the dee[) water, and was innnediately carried after its
comrade, leavinj"' me to swim for my life in a stream
like a mill-race, with my loni;- wet bourka round my
neck, ham|)erin.u' my limbs and drowning me with
its heavy folds, and a ten-pound • exiM-ess ' ritle
on my shoulders. It was Avell for me then tliat
swimmin«r had been one of my favourite forms of
athletic exercise in my boyhood, or I should
never have manaoed to extricate my hando from
the bourka and make a light (»f it with the stream.

366

THE RAIXS.

Sometliin<j^, w stone or soiiu; drit't-wood [ siippost',
f^avc me n severe l)low on tlic kneecnp in crossinfr,
bnt this I only diseovered subsequently , jnid when
at Last I strueii'led somewhere safe to shore amid
the shouts of my men, I think, as I stood spent
and drippiiiLT in the hailstorm after my iey halh, I
fully realised the pleasures of travelling" in the
Caucasus in the rainy season.

To <;o for the Cossack who had led me into the
scrape by his ignorance of the ford, to deprive him
of his horse, and, having seen my men cross by
the true shallow higher up, to gallop madly for
the Cossack station, were my first acts on recovering
myself a little ; and lietween my bath and the
station I never drew bridle until I tumbled off
breathless at the door, whence, regardless of ques-
tions, I made my way to the room where a dozen
Cossacks lay loafing in every stage of dirt and
idleness. Casting all squeamish scruples to the
winds, I stripped off my icy clothes where I stood,
borrowed a shirt from one dirty rascal and an
unutterable sheepskin from another, got a wander-
ing telegraphist, who happened to be at the station,
to give me about half a pint of neat spirit and as
much hot tea as I could drink, and turned in with
my back against the stove, trusting to the heat
within and without to restore my circulation —
which the ride had failed to do — and so save me
from the consequences of my immersion.

THE R.MXS.

1<'-1

111 tlic coiiTisc of the i!\(!iiing my iiu'ii arrived,
liiiviri"' saved most of tho bair<ja<i^e, which had <i()t
loose from the unfortunate packliorse, and when 1
woke in the inornin<j I found myself quite a hero
for my swin), and, hetter than that, a hero with
some moderately clean dry clothes lo o;et into. In
the nit]fht, nevertheless, the gallant Cossacks'
chivalry and I'espect had not prevented their
stealintif my watch and what remained of my
sodden ciiixars. Ilavinjir dried these in the oven,
they had converted them into line-cut tobacco,
which, when I woke, had provided every loafer
amongst them with a little store of cigarettes.
But my throat warned me that it was no time to
make a trouble of trifles, and that it was impera-
tively necessary to get back to Duapse at once,
catch the boat thence on the morrow, and get to
Kertch in time for medical advice if I needed it.

In the night the sea had come up to the foot of
the cliffs, thus barring the usual road to I)ua[)se, and
obliging us to ride some forty versts, by precipitous
and rugged bridle-roads, over the cliffs, during
AvhJch ride the horses' vile pace, the infernal machine
called a Tartar saddle, and the ruggedness of the
roads combined to inflict on my already aching
frame unspeakable tortures. Worse than all, when
the last jolt had been suffered, and the last writhing
submitted to in fording the stream that separated us
from Dua[>se, we found that, owing to the bad state

^68

THE RAIXS.

of the wojitlicr, the (>(lesssi steamer would not toiieli
there for a week, so tliiit for sev(Mi days we niiiiht
kick our heels ami he iiiiserahK' in that chaniiiiii):
wateriiin-plaee.

Tluit week was too <hirk \\\\ era in my travels
to say nuich ahont it, I j^i'el'er, if possih'.e, to
renieinher tlie Caiieasus witliont l)Maj)si'. Despou-
<leney took hold of my faithful Ivan, as soon as he
liad <iot his ])ay : like a true liussian, he took to
drink, and all through my illness left nie to my
fate, in a drunken peasant's cottage, while he wept
and sanghy turns in the only 'duehan' in the place.
l)ay by day my throat became worse. The tele-
graj^hists were kind to me ; but neither they nor
the doctor (veterinary, J believe he was) knew what
was the matter with me ; and every night the steam
that rose from the damp mud floor of my room only
added to my illness.

Once the Governor came to see me ; and as he,
too, Avas a doctor, gave me some advice ; but 1 doubt
whether his ]n'escriptions, had he left any, could
have been made up in his government. However,
he brij»:htened half an hour for me with his chat,
and that, doubtless, did as much good as any medi-
cine would luive done. He told me of some wolves
which had gone mad, and were keei)ing a couple of
villages in a state of panic by their attacks, having
already bitten a man and several cattle, all of which
liad since died from hydrophobia. This madness

THE RAINS.

369

of the wolves is not by any means unfrequent, I was
told, and, strangely enough, generally takes place
during the coldest part of the year. I had intended
to have gone to the villages in the morning to see
what I could do for the peasants with my ' express,'
but was unluckily tempted into a wrestling match
with a celebrated native wrestler ; and the exertion
of winning one fall out of three against him was
the last straw that broke the camel-like back of my
constitution. The fellow was a capital wrestler and
extremely strong ; he had acquired some of his best
throws, oddly enough, in England ; so that, though
he threw me handsomely twice, I could console
myself with the reflection that he had learnt to do
it in my own country.

That night there was a wedding in Duapse, and
eveiy one naturally got drunk ; and whilst I was
tossing in high fever on my bed a score of drunken
moujiks in enormous boots were dancing and shout-
ing in the next room. Two nights this lasted ; at
the end of the second, when I was very nearly
beyond any further enduring power, Providence
willed it that the steamer should arrive ; and as the
doctor insisted that I had nothing more than a bad
sore-throat the matter with me, I w\as taken on
board and landed at Kcrtch, in a critical stage of a
violent attack of diphtheria.

So ended my shooting adventures in the Cau-
casus, and I may well be thankful that in the person

370

THE RAINS,

of M. Bulber<r, of the Russian telegraph service, I
found a kind friend and attentive nurse, as I did also
in my old friend the English Consul. After a fort-
night's careful nursing at M. Bulberg's rooms by a
clever German doctor — whose name I am ungrate-
ful enough to have forgotten, though I am not the
less grateful for his services — I tided over my illness.
As soon as I was pronounced in a safe state to
travel, both as regarded myself and others, I started
for England, still wearing some of the rough gear
in which I had travelled, and arrived at the station
of the town in which I dwelt such a deteriorated
specimen of the English race, that what with my
rags and my beard, the first people I met on alight-
ing — who were the ladies of my own family cut

me dead, and for quite a couple of minutes refused
to recognise me.

THK END.

LONDON I ntlNTBD BT

BPOTTISWOOUR AND CO., NKW-STRBKT EQIABK

AND PABLIAJIBNT BTBBET

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