THE RED FOREST 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 Czar--Cheapening supplies--A
Russian 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--Caucasian 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 Kertch for Ekaterinodar, intending
to have a week’s sport at my old quarters in the Crasnoi Lais (Red
Forest), having written to that effect to Colonel R., the forester,
about a week before. My impedimenta 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 Tiflis across the little known Mooghan Steppe to the Caspian.
But it is hardly worth while to mention my plans, as they nearly all
suffered change, and it would have been better for me if they all had.
At Taman, whilst the horses were being harnessed, I was kindly
entertained by the chief of the Russian Telegraph station, from whom
I gained a good deal of general information. I may say once for all,
that wherever I went I met with the kindest attention from the employés
of the Telegraph Companies, whether Russian or Indo-European, and I
heartily commend to their kindness 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 somewhat 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 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 fastens 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
greyhound. The best are black and almost 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,
had we to pull up whilst the driver wrung out the mud from one of
these sweeping appendages, and tied it up into a less comely but
more convenient bob. Without this the horses could not have done the
distance at all. As for myself, I was speedily sodden through, while
my face was like that of a plaster cast with its eyes bunged up.
It is a pitiful thing to see all this useful land untilled, and all
the peasantry and the country itself so poor. My friend the Russian
telegraph clerk told me a few more reasons besides the perpetual
‘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 himself pretty much
after this fashion: ‘In this particular 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 off, 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
men are, even if all were workers even in the English sense, far too
small for the acreage, and you have some reasons for the 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 cheerful, 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_l._ to 2_l._ 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; in summer black bread
and arboose (water-melon); in winter black bread and cabbage soup, with
a dry fish now and again as a _bonne bouche_, 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 delights, 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 himself told me that some men working 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 moujik’s clothes are as simple and inexpensive
as his diet: in winter a toga of sheepskin, with the woolly side in,
a scarf round his waist and sheepskin hat on his head, a pair of long
boots that cost him more than all the rest of his outfit, but are
unrivalled for their long wearing qualities; in summer a calico shirt;
and summer and winter you may see his wife and brats going about, in
snow or sunshine, with nothing but a single linen garment 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 government under
which she exists, and to which, in spite of the outcry of the few,
the majority 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 suffer continually. Were there less compulsory military
service, more religious training, greater encouragement given to
agriculture, and more inducements held out to foreigners to settle in
the waste places of Russia’s vast empire, so that by their example
they might teach her own people how to make the best of the natural
advantages they enjoy, there might then be a chance of happiness and
prosperity for Russia and her people.
There is in every Russian moujik an inherent love of the Czar,
a personal loyalty to him, which deifies and renders its object
infallible in the eyes of his subjects, and this takes much to
eradicate. 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
Tumerūk, 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. Ikra (fresh caviare) was nearly two
shillings a pound, and fresh butter tenpence. It is one of the
unpleasant characteristics of the Russian tradesman that you must
always bargain with him for the merest trifle. It is only fair to say
for him that it is the fault rather of his customers than himself; for
in Kertch, where we were known, the tradesmen, knowing that the English
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 acquaintance 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, well built,
and of a wondrous complexion, though they eat much meat and sweets
and drink strong wine. Yet 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 name of skippers, machinists, tutors,
and governesses, above all governesses. That would be a grand mistake.
Beautiful women don’t leave England for this. Beauty is capital. Women
as a race are worth nothing in England if they have not some special
talent. One foreign language or accomplishment for children is no
great thing, so it only remains to go to Russia. The greater part of
Englishwomen are tall, well built, rather proud and calm; according to
many even cold. The colour of their hair is of never-ending variety.’
Such appears to be the judgment of one who evidently believed himself
a connoisseur, and had had, moreover, an opportunity 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 ‘seaside 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 wretched natives took refuge in the depths of the
‘kamish’ jungles. Here they stayed till nightfall, when the myriads
of venomous mosquitoes, which make their home amongst these reeds,
drove them out, preferring death at the 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, I have
little doubt of its truth.
The cold is getting quite severe already; all the quail 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 water, 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 cooking, though not first-rate, is the hotel’s
greatest attraction. Some one talks about man’s heartiest welcome
being at an inn. If he had ever tried a Russian inn, he would have
reconsidered that statement. Most of the guests at the _table-d’hôte_
are officers, from which one would infer that regimental messes are
not in vogue in Russia.
In the morning after my arrival at Ekaterinodar I was up betimes,
and, with a friend whose acquaintance I had made on my first visit,
proceeded to the fair outside the town to purchase the indispensable
bourka. Thanks to his exertions, I was, in little more than an hour,
the possessor of a good bourka, sheepskin shouba and cap, all purchased
for about 4_l._ Attired in the costume of the country, and speaking
the language fluently, if not well, I am less likely to attract the
attention of the natives, who, I am told, being for the most part
Mussulmen, are bitterly set against the English just now, ascribing, as
they do, the misfortunes of the Turkish Empire to our cold friendship,
for which they have, I fear, a harder name.
Ekaterinodar must be a prospering town, for I am told that seven years
ago there were only five stone houses in the place, and now there are
upwards of a thousand. The 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. But now as the cart-tracks through the town
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 help of constant pruning and
uprooting, the houses begin to peep less blindly through the trees,
while a tolerably vigorous town government prevents the deposit of
filth in the public thoroughfares, the back of the fever has been
broken.
The wonderful richness of the soil is sufficiently shown by a statement
made to me by a settler here to-day: ‘If I don’t clear my garden three
times a year from new growths, I should be unable to force a way
through it at the end of a twelvemonth.’ It was in his garden that I
saw this afternoon some of the largest gourds I ever set eyes on, some
weighing over eighty pounds, while he assured me that they sometimes
reached as much as 120 or 130 pounds. The people here make a substance
called cassia of them, on which they live, and with which they feed
their pigs.
Trade seemed to be very brisk in the town. The fair was crowded,
the shops full, and the streets alive with conveyances of every
description. The number of military stationed here appears
considerable, and the barracks are fairly imposing edifices.
Ekaterinodar boasts 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 open stood
numerous little tables, at which nips of vodka and other liqueurs
were dispensed, for the most part by German Jews, to little crowds of
half-drunk Cossacks. Close by, through the open doorway of a tent, you
caught the glare of a huge fire and your nostrils a savoury smell of
roasting mutton. Feeling hungry, I entered at one of these open doors,
and found myself in a Kalmuck refreshment booth, with two or three dead
sheep hanging round the tent-pole and a big semi-subterranean fire
at the farther end. Here several wild-looking Tartars were devilling
little knobs of mutton on a skewer; and purchasing two or three of
these skewers, with their savoury burden on them all hissing from the
coals, we made the best meal I have yet partaken of in the Caucasus.
To wash this down we ordered Kalmuck tea, evidently quite the thing
to drink here. The tea is pressed in huge cake-like bricks, and is
apparently 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 lumps
of butter, and pepper and salt to taste, when it resembles soup a good
deal more than tea.
It was not until 3 P.M. next day (Thursday) that I managed to get my
‘podorojna’ (travelling ticket) and other things in order. At that
hour it was really too late to start on my long drive to the Red
Forest, but I was so sick of delays that I determined to get as far
as I could that night, and trust to luck for the rest. My yemstchik,
who had only a misty notion of the whereabouts of our journey’s
end, was a most melancholy fellow, and regaled me for the first hour
or more with stories of horrible murders and atrocities which had
lately taken place in or near Ekaterinodar, and would have made the
fortune of ‘Lloyd’s Weekly.’ They spoke little for the efficiency
of the police in the Caucasus; but then a more miserable lot than
the Russian police generally, I never saw. They are the smallest and
worst men (physically) in the army, and, as such, are drafted into the
police force. They wear a sword which they use to protect themselves
against dogs, attacking small curs with this formidable weapon with
the greatest ferocity. I speak here of what I have seen. If they have
a chance they are, I am assured by Russians, 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 property:--
‘A certain lady, resident in the Crimea, but not a native, found her
silver forks rapidly disappearing in a manner difficult to explain.
These forks were twelve in number, and marked with a crest or monogram.
One only remained at last, and in despair she searched the box of
a Russian servant in her employ, whom she had reason to suspect of
dishonesty. Here she found the eleven missing forks, and, without
disturbing them, sent for the police, made them search the servant’s
box, and thus the culprit was taken red-handed. The servant was removed
to prison, so were the forks. Time passed, nothing was done. At last,
tired of waiting, the lady 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 police
should have the other fork in order that they might identify the eleven
as her property. In a weak moment she sent 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
military law, yet before I had passed my six months in the country,
I was destined to become so familiar with stories of murders and
atrocities committed here from day to day, as to think little of them.
Meanwhile, thinking and chatting of these things, we had found our way
by 10 P.M. to the forester’s cottage. A huge fire was blazing outside,
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 long whiff of smoke through his nostrils, the head-forester
had betaken himself to dreamland. The Cossacks told us he had guests
to-night, 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 Cossack
guards by the fire, and in spite of their looks of wonder and ridicule,
prepared to be comfortable in my own way. After some delay a kettle
was produced, and taking some tea from my game sack, I soon brewed the
odorous beverage, by sharing which with my rough companions I gained
considerably 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 I 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 I
have met Cossacks I have found the same outward respect at any rate
for religious observances, and 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 bourka on the droshky, and when I woke, the
bourka, which was black the night before, was silvery with rime, while
my moustache was quite hard frozen. The forester’s cheery greeting,
and the hot breakfast that followed 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 Red Forest. The guest spoken of by the
Cossacks was a certain Colonel H., a German, who had come a long way
for a few days’ sport with my old friend, and great were to be the
drives in his honour.
Our first day was very unproductive, however; for though we got some
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 another quarter of the forest a furious crashing,
accompanied by short fierce snortings. Old R.’s little wiry figure
actually stiffened with excitement, and his eyes became more prominent
even than their wont, as he gripped my arm till it ached. ‘Kabân!’
(boar) was all he seemed able to get out, and, indeed, I was little
less excited myself. Motioning to the German to guard the corner of
the quartal where the rides crossed, he stole stealthily along a ride
towards the sounds, stopping every now and then to listen, but never
letting go my unfortunate arm. The sound was close to us, and now even
my untrained ears told me that the sound was much like that of pigs in
deadly strife. All at once my vivacious little friend dropped my arm
and 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 snorting, with the rending 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 lurched
forward, evidently hard hit; but he instantly recovered and went on. I
had a faint idea that some one was calling me back, telling 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 music 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
nearly impenetrable thickets, I was on the point of giving up the
chase when I heard the dogs baying something not far ahead of me. To
creep to within thirty yards or so of them did not take long, and then
crouching behind the bole of a huge oak, I waited for my eyes to get
used to the darkness. Gradually I began to make out the dogs’ sterns
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 maddening. The dogs’ clamour never ceased. The
boar kept half growling, 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,
I rolled him over with my ‘express.’ Rising he tried to charge, but
though I fired again, I believe it was unnecessary, as he was too hard
hit ever to have reached me; still I had seen a man killed by a wounded
boar, and I naturally preferred to keep this one at a distance.
This was the first really large game I had killed, and I rushed up to
him and gloated over him with all the abandon of a boy. I have said I
had seen a man killed by a boar, but I should have added it was his
dead body and not the event which I saw. Moreover, I had never seen
a wild boar before this morning, and now as I contemplated my fallen
foe a strange uneasiness beset me. There was something so homely in
the innocent face of that dead pig, that my heart for a moment misgave
me. But I banished these foolish qualms, the reaction after my triumph
probably; and as I heard the tootle of my friend’s horn approach I
sat myself down on a broad side of bacon and indulged in a victorious
whoo-oop. And now the bushes part asunder, and R., taking in the
position at a glance, bursts into a cheer and loads me with praise.
But, alas! what is this? As my friend approaches, slowly the gay smile
fades, the applauding voice is still; the horn drops from his nerveless
grasp, and the merry little visage lengthens out in a telescopic
fashion truly awful to behold. ‘Moe domaschne kabân!’ Those were the
fatal words that first left his erst joyous lips--‘My own house pig!’
The blow was too awful, too sudden. In my pride I fell. Gradually
the fact was borne in on my already half-awakened mind: ‘wild boars
are black, but this beast was white.’ I had come some thousand miles
to slay a beast which I might have found in any sty at home; I had
accepted my friend’s hospitality, and rewarded it by slaying his one
cherished porker. How I smoothed him down I don’t know, but I did it
somehow. As for myself, I never quite recovered until I had slain a
veritable wild boar long afterwards. The fact was, this wretched animal
had broken out of his sty some months previously, and betaken himself
to the forest to take his fill of love, chestnuts, and other pleasant
things. He had apparently been making too free with the lady friends
of his black-skinned brethren, and at the moment at which we arrived
was doing battle with two of them for his offences. In the dark his own
master had not recognised him, so that there was ample excuse for me,
and there was even a good side to this mishap, inasmuch as we were all
getting very tired of roe-deer’s flesh, and this forest-fed bacon was a
grateful change. Dragging him home with a sapling affixed to his snout,
was the poorest part of the joke.
During the next day I did not recover my spirits sufficiently to
try for big game, so the German colonel and myself devoted it to
pheasant-shooting. The covert consists of thick reed-beds, the birds
are of the original stock from which our English birds are derived,
and in no way differ from them in size or appearance. We killed very
few, my dog proving utterly useless in thick covert, in consequence
of which I gave her away on the first opportunity. I had no right 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 open shooting
for some time, I thought it better to part with her. I am told that
throughout the Kuban district, the tremendous frost of 1876, 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, I saw a few woodcock 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.
Of 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 pheasants. 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 the ground. My own assertion that with us the
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
appeared 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
boisterous manners of an English schoolboy, added to the peculiarities
natural to a Russian. In about ten minutes he had put me through the
usual catechism, to which time and experience had taught me to submit
with the greatest placidity. Who was my father? What was my trade?
Was I rich? Married? Why did I come here, &c.? To all these questions
I had regular stereotyped 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 Englishman I imagined little was meant by
such an off-hand invitation as 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.
The days of preparation passed in Ekaterinodar 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 departure 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 officer; and if I had little luggage,
this worthy 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 piled 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 group 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 exceedingly merry time of it.
Briskly our horses trotted along in the keen morning air; the roads
were hard with frost, and as the heavy cart lurched from rut to rut,
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 aërial flights in time to go on with the cart, but at
what an expense 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, the good intentions of the Government are too frequently
frustrated.
Never was I more heartily thankful than when we came to what was (for
us) the end of this execrable 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 ‘aoul’ (village) was fenced about with wattled walls,
and seemed a busy, thriving little place, but as far as I could see
contained none of those lovely women of whom one has heard so much in
‘Lalla Rookh’ and elsewhere. And perhaps I may be permitted to say here
that neither at Tiflis nor in Daghestan, nor elsewhere in the Caucasus,
have I seen, either among the peasants or the upper classes, one single
face sufficiently beautiful to attract a second glance in London. I 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 the aurochs, I never
found it. I have brought back several photographs of typical Caucasian
faces, bought at various photographers, who seem to me to have always
chosen the best-looking people they could find, yet even so they are by
no means strikingly beautiful. The men, if you will, are many of them
magnificent, and as handsome as they are well built; but for the women,
even those who have good features are so totally devoid of expression,
so extremely animal in their appearance, as to almost warrant the
Turks’ conclusion that they possess none but physical properties, and
are as soulless as they are insipid. Moreover, they are most of them so
wonderfully alike that cases of mistaken identity must be common, even
with the most devoted husbands.
By the way, Tscherkess and Cossack are frequently used amongst the
Russians as terms of reproach, equivalent to robber and swashbuckler
respectively, and no Circassian ever calls himself Tscherkess.
Here at Enem I got the first insight into my companions’ ideas of
travelling. We had perhaps been on the road a couple of hours, and
had breakfasted as heartily as men can do, yet here we were doomed to
repeat the process. And to save further reference to it I may say that
our vast supply of stores was by no means unnecessary. Every two 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 much food campaigning 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 valley between two gables,
your feet thrust into things like a couple of fire-shovels, with the
corners of which you poke up the ribs of your Rosinante if he is tired
or sluggish. Here, too, the English equestrian meets with a novelty in
the pace of his horse, which has been taught to go 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 properly, and if they do, and you attempt to rise to the trot as
men do in England, 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 wonderful endurance, but there is one breed of horses
in the Caucasus that looks all over like making into good hunters--I
mean the Khabardine. They are larger, finer, and faster animals
than any others that I have ever seen in Russia, and their price is
proportionately higher. A good Khabardine costs from 200 to 500 roubles.
As we journeyed on from Enem 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 were almost as
often in the water as out of it, and it is this small stream that when
flooded stops this road to the Black Sea for nearly half the year. We
stayed for the night at some mineral springs about forty versts from
Enem, beautifully situated near the Pscekupz, with high, well-timbered
hills all round. Most of the trees are young oaks, which were now
lovely in their russet robes. But there are, besides, wild pear and
apple, with everywhere a thick undergrowth of hazel. At the mineral
springs is a Russian military hospital, and the doctor in charge was
our host for the night. The hospital is built to hold some 300 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 springs themselves
are of hot water, strongly impregnated with sulphur, which comes down
from the hills at a temperature of 42° Reaumur. I saw some of the
water, which was colder, of a dull bluish grey, and stank horribly.
These baths are supposed to cure rheumatic affections, and my friend
the Cossack pretended to have obtained great relief from them. Nay,
so enthusiastic was he that, after taking them both internally and
externally, he insisted on my doing the same. Being in extreme need of
a tub, I complied with his whim as far as an external application went,
and was parboiled for my complacency, feeling a good deal worse when I
came out than I did when I went in.
The springs run through a white stone which, though extremely hard
on the surface, pulverises at the touch the moment 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 manufacture of glass. If this be so, a glass factory here would,
one would imagine, be an extremely remunerative speculation, with any
quantity of timber and water-power immediately at hand, and no rival
factory nearer than Moscow, especially 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 morning 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, completely 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 abundance is not restricted to this one
part of the Caucasus. The insects by the wayside were ‘hyale,’ clouded
yellow, red admirals, painted ladies, and several varieties of white
butterflies. I also noticed some large pale yellow butterflies, which
may have been the common brimstone, but I believe were not. I am pretty
sure 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 appeared to be in the most abject poverty. On
every 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 land of the lotus-eaters, yet what
sorry beings these lotus-eaters are. All round them such beauty as
Tennyson 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 just enough work to provide for himself 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 how few and far between the villages
were. The Tscherkesses, who made a garden of at least some parts of
their native home, might almost feel revenged in contemplating the
utter failure of the race which has supplanted them.
But for us the day was no day of idleness, but rather one of
considerable toil and difficulty. The road grew exceeding steep and
rugged, and the little baggage cart which we had endeavoured to send
on by our men came to grief, and was broken beyond repair. The driver,
who was on the top of the baggage, probably 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 much to eat and too much shaking up after it. For a cavalry
officer, too, it was somewhat 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 painful 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 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 his servants. At last his insolence became so intolerable
that, risking all possible consequences, I got him 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
unpleasant 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 state of siege,
uncertain what my quondam friend’s servants might think fit to do to
me, I had a wretched ride in my own society to Duapsè, 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 Cossack behaved like a gentleman, and although, of course,
we were glad to say good-by to one another at Duapsè, we parted good
friends, and I believe he exonerated me from all blame in the matter.