ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.
Mountaineers and Shikarees--Outfit--Journey from London to
Odessa--Snipe-shooting on the Dnieper--A drunken yemstchik--A
collision--Prince Vorontzoff--Aloupka--Yalta--Livadia 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 the Caucasus drew my attention again to my old hunting grounds.
It was Mr. Freshfield in this work (‘The Frosty Caucasus’) who wrote
that in all his 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 unchosen 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-climbing to
have much time for looking for game. And indeed the book itself leads
one to infer this. The climbing of almost impracticable mountains and
the pursuit of great game could not be combined by any one. To 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 (C. F. No. 12), fitted with metal
cartridge-cases, which when inserted converted the gun into a
muzzle-loader, a suit of moleskin, one of Rouch’s photographic
apparatuses, and a 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 with them, 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 principal small streams and villages. This
I afterwards 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
are marked, and the names are sufficiently like those given them by
their inhabitants to enable a stranger to recognise them.
The journey from St. Katherine’s Docks to Odessa, _viâ_ 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
yourself surrounded with at least all the necessary conveniences of
life on the last stage to Odessa; the gradual diminution in pace,
until some little distance from your journey’s end it amounts to
little more than a crawl; the sudden clearing and brightening of the
atmosphere once you have crossed the 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
congener the hooded crow in his place; the multitude of magpies, and
the loquaciousness of one’s travelling companions. I am afraid my
readers, if I have any, will at once put me down as unobservant, but
it may only be that first impressions are lost if the same journey is
often repeated.
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-shooting 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. Stanley, 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 them 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 the while the yemstchik laughing and swearing, and not minding
one bit. Two of his crimson velvet cushions dropped off into darkness
behind him, and this probably sobered him. At last we got 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 was
unusually moderate in his oaths at the accident, and passed on quickly
and disappeared. We discovered afterwards that a valuable piece of the
harness 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 thin post passing between our off leader and
the shaft horse, cut clean through every atom of harness, and set the
young one free. For a moment he stood stunned 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 the remaining two horses. The fellow was lucky
enough to recover his horse next day, but not without considerable
trouble and expense. I believe he and 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 Prince Vorontzoff,
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 Vorontzoff
many thanks for his ready kindness to a stranger, and repeat them with
the same sincerity with which I 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 magnificence, Russian
luxury, and English comfort. In the distance it looks massive and
glorious, with magnificent timber, gardens, and vineyards stretching
down to the sea at its feet, the grey summit of Aië Petri towering over
it from behind, and away to the right the Bear Mountain, couched with
his head on his paws, looking ever seaward.
Yalta itself is the Eden of Russia perhaps, but it is an Eden in
which most of the inhabitants are invalids, all the hotels infamously
exorbitant in their charges; and life, unless one is addicted to the
process of the grape cure, excessively monotonous. The palace of
Livadia is beautiful, but would, I think, scarcely please ordinary
English taste as much 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
than 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 Miskitchee, the lake that
‘best of all lakes the fowler loves,’ on these Crimean steppes.
Miskitchee is the Tartar name for a village some sixty versts from
Kertch: the lake, which adjoins the village, shares with the latter
its name. The lake is 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
for the 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 as I 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 sportsman, 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 if I accepted the lift I
should have to pay a considerable fare, so I declined as graciously as
possible. My friend persisted, and at last I told him frankly 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 nightfall.
He consented at once, so without more ado I got 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 bagged several hares and a few quail. His
sight was the most marvellous I ever met with. Standing 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 ploughed 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 undiscernible 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 struck, and we dismounted
to choose our sheep. My friend plunged in among them, and after
regarding many with the eye of a profound connoisseur, chose four.
To choose them was easy, to secure them seemed less so. Kicking off
his shoes and rolling up his long loose sleeves, the purchaser tried
to approach his purchase. The more he advanced the more rapidly the
sheep retired, trying in vain to lose himself amongst his comrades or
substitute 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
sheepish 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 way, whenever I
killed anything, my guide insisted on cutting its throat and breaking
its legs, a superstitious 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 top of a low hovel in the middle of the
straggling main street (if streets there are in Tartar ‘aouls’), and
shouted himself hoarse in the Tartar tongue. What he said I knew not
then, but from subsequent events I believe it was to the effect that
the good butcher, Lotso, had brought with him five fat sheep, all or
any of which he was prepared then and there to convert into mutton,
if sufficient customers were forthcoming. 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 perhaps the Tartar housekeepers 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 selected from 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 that it was all a dozen Tartars
could do, whirling their knouts round the butcher as the whips do when
the huntsman is breaking 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 (butcher’s perquisites), thrown back into the cart,
and after a drink of sour cream at the dirty brown hands 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 and sold, the 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 suggested our return, when he coolly informed me that I had better
make up my mind to pass the night at his house at J----, naming a
village of some half-dozen houses, at which an execrable 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. Accordingly I reminded
him of his promise. All the satisfaction I could get was that if I
wanted to go back I must walk. Did I know in which direction Miskitchee
lay? Yes, out yonder, over that low line of hills. A grim laugh, and
the assurance that Miskitchee was in an exactly opposite direction,
increased my suspicions of my quondam friend, as I knew by certain
landmarks that he must be lying. A moment’s consideration showed me
that a walk at this hour, even supposing I did not lose my way, would
end probably in a night on the steppe, at the mercy of this man or
any other who chose to stalk me, and surprise me in the dark or in my
sleep, to say nothing of the absolute necessity in case of my leaving
the cart of abandoning my game. So I changed my tactics. He had no
fire-arms, and sat on the edge of the cart. I had my gun, and sat
behind in the body of it. Mustering what little Russian I knew, I let
him understand that I held him to his promise; that I had heard of
J---- and its evil reputation, and didn’t mean to go there; that I knew
the track now on our right was the home track; and that, if he refused
to take it, I would 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. I simply watched him, repeated my proposals, and
sat still. Meanwhile the horses were pulled up. Then my friend tried to
slip off his seat, and so get out of his awkward position in front of
my gun’s muzzle. I 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 I never took my eyes off him, 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 spoke to me, to assure me that
further than that nothing would induce him 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, thankful to have got off so
well. On my way back I thought I had probably been over suspicious,
and made a fool of myself. However, on my arrival, I found I had been
searched for all day, and great anxiety had been felt for me. It
seems my butcher was of more professions than one, being indeed the
most notorious horse-stealer on these steppes. He had camped near the
village the night before, and made several inquiries about me, having
seen me returning from shooting that night. He had also expressed great
admiration for my gun, a rather handsome breech-loader. This, together
with the fact that the butcher, one of my host’s best horses, and
myself had all disappeared simultaneously 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, I believe, gone, and the whole village looked asleep
in the sunshine as we passed it by: a straggling group of one-storied
hovels, with the sunlight glinting on rows of yellow gourds on the
thatch; 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 mud of the main street and his quarters on
the somewhat drier mud of his dining-room floor, lounged, cigarette
in mouth, a pink-shirted Russian 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 oven; this would be the baboushka’s
(grandmother’s) bed. A wooden bedstead with 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, fighting over the family loaf of black
bread, from which they are in vain endeavouring to hammer 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 unsavoury as it is ugly.
Gladly, then, we left the village behind us, and drawing up our
droshkies under the lee of a high natural embankment beside the lake,
prepared to pass the night there. A hole was dug in the earth and a
subterranean fire made to cook over. Our bourkas stretched over the
droshky made a kind of refuge between the wheels, into which we could
crawl and sleep in case of rain.
These and other little preparations having been at least started, we
began our shooting. Two guns went round the lake, one on either side;
one worthy sportsman might have been seen arraying himself in 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 through the shallow lake for the reed beds in the
centre; here carefully concealed to reap the benefit of the stalking
party on either shore. The fifth gunner, a tall thin German from Riga,
the very best of good fellows, with the longest of legs, had taken to
himself a large biscuit-tin, the which he had deposited on a small
sand-bank 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 B. awaited
the dodgy duck. The men in the reeds had the best of it, though the
shooting was hardest there, and as we had no retrievers we never
got a quarter of the birds we killed. The isolated gentleman on the
biscuit-tin got a few long shots, and as his birds all fell in open
water, got most of what he killed. But, alas, when he attempted to
rise to gather his birds, he was 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 unadorned’ contributed some mallards, teal, and a
couple of pintail, with a few snipe; and after counting out the bag,
all drew round the fire to imbibe the cheering ‘tchai’ (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 was
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 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
German jäger’s ghost stories, culled from the forests of Germany and
the plains of Asia, until far into the night. And never had a teller
of weird legends fitter accompaniments than the million voices of the
lake at our feet and the ceaseless pelting and buffeting of the storm
without.
One more shot at the duck in the morning, and then we turned homewards.
My time I felt was 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 escape the
Circassian fever which is so prevalent in early autumn.