CRASNOI LAIS.
A frozen sea--Swarms of wild-fowl--The Indo-European
telegraph--Sledging on the Azov--A desolate
scene--Taman--Journey inland--Tumerūk--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--Cossack beaters--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. 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
wild-fowl or skating with the fair ladies of Kertch on the rink by the
jetty. But one fine morning the lines of the Indo-European 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 like 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 arrangement, and within
an hour from the time when K. first proposed the trip, he and I were
hard at work in the bazaar purchasing stores for the journey. 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, vodka, and other portable eatables
and drinkables were stowed away in the body of our sledge.
For many days previous to the time of which I write, the over-sea route
from Yenikale to Taman had been open to carts and sledges, while vans,
laden with corn, had been continually crossing with only an aggregate
of two accidents in the last four days. It was then with but few
misgivings 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
mosquito shipping, and now and then under the hull of some big steamer
caught in the ice, the sensation 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 conviction that we were in for a
really good thing. 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 things we had passed on our way were several wretched
assemblies of pale-looking gulls, literally frozen out, poor fellows,
and a few huge eagles, squatting on the ice, their plumes all ruffled
up, 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 with snow, clustering 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; the 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 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 appeared to me an unanswerable enigma. Taman
hardly deserves a description, even from so humble a pen as mine. It
has a jetty and a telegraph 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 Panticapæum (Kertch) on the other side of the
straits; now it is a collection of miserable hovels, surrounded by
mud 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 bankrupt, and he was a Russian; so that 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 literally no scenery to describe? The road is
a beaten 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 roofed 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 untenanted 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, and this we found was Tumerūk, our
resting-place for the night. As far as we could see it was a larger
town than Taman, with the inevitable green-domed church, a good
spacious bazaar, barracks I think, and a neat little club-house. We
were told that Tumerūk derived its wealth from the sturgeon 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 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) we 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 bedsteads 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 Tumerūk 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 comfortable quarters in Kertch, we proceeded to reap
the reward of our long drive in a deep and dreamless sleep.
Towards morning I half awoke with an idea that the house was attacked,
so violent was the noise that aroused me, and at once jumped 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. Gradually 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 I became seriously
alarmed lest our morning callers should have been too late to save him.
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 the winter, and my friend and I
had had the narrowest escape from asphyxiation possible. After immense
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 the day.
The travelling during this 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 pheasants are said to abound,
and boars and roe to occur not infrequently. After getting out of the
reedy land we came to a tract of another nature, bare and rock-strewn;
and here, within half a mile of the station at which we slept, I
was surprised to see numbers of foxes hunting about in the snow for
food. I should think that at one time a score must have been in sight
simultaneously. As soon as we had taken in our rugs and ordered the
samovar, I took my rifle, as it was not yet dusk, and 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 good until I got to a frozen lake,
some three-quarters of a mile from the station. Here I wounded a fox
and followed him for some distance over the ice, and in doing 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 manner 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
wolf’s howl, and once heard it is not easily forgotten. The first howl
was followed by another and another, and though I have no wish to pose
as a coward, I frankly admit I wished I was anywhere but three-quarters
of a mile from a house, and all the distance two feet deep in snow,
which would not bear my weight on the surface. The wind, luckily,
was from them to me, so that, though I walked back at my best pace,
plunging frantically into deep drifts every few yards, from which I
was spurred on by ever-recurring wolf music, I saw nothing, though 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 quarter
it might have been worse. Over our tea that night the station-master
spun many a long yarn of the doings of the wolves, highly coloured
perhaps, but true in part, I believe. Next morning their tracks were
numerous by the post-road, and they must evidently 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, we at last came
in sight of our journey’s end, Ekaterinodar. This is the first town of
any size on this side the Caucasus, and at first sight even this is
more forest than town. The trees have just been sufficiently removed
to make room for the houses, but wherever no house actually stands
the forest has not been interfered with. The effect was extremely
pretty, now that the snow had loaded every tree with its white plumes
and given the streets a hard white covering; but in summer, when the
acacias (which predominate here) are in blossom, Ekaterinodar must be
as lovely as it is malarious. In summer and early autumn fever rages
here, and even now every man and woman that we pass in the streets has
a yellow wizen face that tells of the ravages of this Asiatic curse.
Here at last everything is genuinely Asiatic except the buildings. The
grotesque combinations of top hat and long 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 garments, belted at the waist with
bright-coloured shawls; women in short petticoats and high boots with
bashliks 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 engaged that we first heard of the existence of
a large royal forest of some twenty-nine square versts 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. R.), was the work of five
minutes, and next morning saw us with a friend in our sledge, who knew
the colonel, dashing 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 all abroad, busy in their
nocturnal forays.
After a drive of half-an-hour through dim forest rides, a fire
glimmered 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 wattle 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 staff. Throwing open his door, our host rushed
out to meet us, a little wiry man, with 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 follow, was discussed with an appetite which even the schnapps
could not increase. Then bed was proposed, and my friend being a
German, and of a 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 calmly 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 much for my boyish impatience; and my kind old host,
seeing it, was as pleased at my keenness as amused at my impatience.
Going out, he found one of the Cossacks was just preparing for a night
hunt, and returning asked me if I would care to accompany him. Of
course I jumped at the offer, and was starting forthwith. But my host
called me back, and making me leave my own 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, I 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 combination of sheepskins conceivable, but he
seemed to know his work, and was none the worse for being silent. As we
passed down the long forest 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 temperature 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 heightened
the effect by contrast. On every side I could look down long vistas of
frozen hazels with tall oaks rising above them, through whose quaintly
twisting limbs the intense 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 shadow 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 strong 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 as 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 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 approaching beasts must hear it as I did; and in my anxiety I even
pressed my breast with my hands in an unreasoning 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, painfully distinct for a minute, while the other sound
ceased; then a rasping sound and a crash as of some 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 flying deer died away, the tramp of approaching footsteps,
and all was over. The Cossack arrived first, and behind him my German
jäger, woefully crestfallen, as well he might have been could he have
known what black wrath filled his companion’s heart. The deer had been
coming straight to me when my friend, 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 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; but 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 dogs
with tan chests and points, looking as if they had a large cross of the
bloodhound. The _modus operandi_ of the day’s sport was simple in the
extreme. The whole forest was divided into sections, each containing
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
everything they came across, from a stag to a running 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
shouting, dogs baying, guns firing, and hares scuttling to the right
and left of you, while through all, with a beautiful 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 outlying
bit of it, from which we probably drove some game towards our next
day’s ground. Although the snow was covered with tracks, we saw nothing
but hares, of which we bagged about twenty.
The morning of Thursday broke as brilliantly as its predecessors, 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 swearing 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 calling a huge-bearded ruffian
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 of his men, turned up.
This was the local Nimrod, and these the beaters he brought with him;
and a wilder lot to look at, a more thirsty lot to refresh, a noisier,
more frolicsome 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 sportsmen, 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 disappeared 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 from 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 the bushes and thick covert in front, every ear
intently listening for the patter of feet or the sound of breaking
brushwood. But as yet no sound: even the Cossacks were too distant to
be 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 beating
a few nights ago, but now far less startling in the daylight than it
was then in the shadows and stillness of night.
Here they come trooping towards our line, four does and a tall stag in
front, half trotting, half walking, tossing their dainty heads up and
down as they approach. They advance straight towards the oak at which
I saw my German friend posted, and I reluctantly hold my hand that he
may make the best of his chance. Nearer and nearer they come, and yet
no shot breaks the stillness, though they are almost past him. Suddenly
they throw up their heads, and with a rush are lost in the forest
beyond, without a shot having been fired at them. My friend had of
course broken the rules, left his own tree, and gone off to one which
seemed to him to have greater attractions. Thus the deer had for the
second time passed him unfired at.
Soon the shots began to ring out, at first only a dropping fire, though
towards the end of the drive the firing was so frequent as almost to
resemble file-firing. After the red deer a wild cat came towards me,
moving softly over the snow; and as my eye followed him I became aware
of some dozen grey forms that had risen suddenly ghost-like all round
me: one old hare sitting absolutely under my tree and gazing apparently
rigidly into my face. There she sat, listening to the shots, without
stirring for some five minutes, until in the open between two great
oaks a fine red fox came trotting stealthily towards us, his broad
heavy brush spread, and seeming to trail on the snow behind him, which
threw his whole graceful, undulating form out in bold relief. It seemed
against one’s English nature to shoot him, but it had to be done, and
a charge of heavy shot rolled him over on the snow. It seemed like
shooting a friend.
By this time the cries of the beaters had drawn very near, some of
their forms even showing from time to time in open places. Three quick
springs and an abrupt pause in the bushes in front of me now arrested
my attention, but thinking after a time that it was only another hare,
I singled out one of these long-eared gentry, and rolled him over. As I
did so two roebucks broke covert, and galloped rapidly past our Russian
friend on the left, who, making a neat right and left, laid them both
on the path.
This was the shot of the day. A bugle now sounded a warning to turn
our backs to the beaters and only shoot as the game passed us, thus
avoiding the chance of bagging a beater. The hares came thick and fast,
and as they cantered steadily 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 I was 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 de grâce_, 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 preparatory 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 English 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 sledge and there tapped, the forester, with three
or four to help him, forming the Cossacks in line, and giving each man
his nip in rotation, which he pitched 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, I 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
been double the height and circumference of an English ‘topper,’ with a
crown of green cloth, got three drams in this way. But 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 roes and hares. If there had
been boars or bears I 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 175 hares, and this divided amongst some twenty guns, of
whom two-thirds acted only as scarecrows to the game. The sport was
good and wild enough in itself, but poor and without charm as compared
to the still hunt of the night before.
Arrived at the forester’s house, the hares were given as wages to the
beaters, who exchanged their skins for vodka from some neighbouring
drinking shop, and made a vast stew of the carcases. With an enormous
bonfire blazing, they made themselves merry on this rough fare until
late into the night, dancing wild, graceful flings and reels, and
singing national songs, in which a tone of melancholy and depression
seemed to run through the warlike character of a border ballad.
The whole scene was one which Turner’s pencil might have gloried
in, but no pen could do justice to the wild figures in their ragged
sheepskins 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 morning before leaving 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 discovered them there, and when we
came in the morning the forester showed us plainly by their spoor
their method of attack. At every few hundred yards round the entire
circumference of the ‘quartal’ a wolf had entered it, and the whole
pack gradually converging towards the centre had surrounded and killed
three of the roes, which in rushing from one wolf must have dashed
right into the jaws of another. My friend told me that he himself had
been witness of another instance of the wolf’s cunning whilst driving
on the post-road in 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 kept frolicking 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
perhaps 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 you in a similar attitude, and after some
time spent in contemplation will slowly retire, leaving you unmolested.
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, when
the she-wolf is followed by a party of her grim suitors, that the
Tscherkesses and Cossacks most dread this animal, and then they say
they are 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 Kertch, we got
under weigh next morning on our return journey. On our way I wounded
an old wolf which I saw slinking round some kamish (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 him with my rifle.
Three days’ fast travelling saw us back at Kertch, the heroes of the
hour; for though Ekaterinodar with its forest is so near, the Russian
sportsman is of so unenterprising a nature that none of our comrades
knew it except by report. The 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 comfortable home to return to was a blessing mightily to be
desired.