A MOUNTAIN DAWN
I HAD turned aside from the track to climb the side of a wooded hill
near the Stolovy Mountain; I had an idea that I might find a sheltered
spot among the trees. I had not slept out before, and I feared to be
found sleeping by any of the natives. I was not a rich prey for the
robber, but in Russia they steal even one’s clothes. There are many
stories current in Vladikavkaz which must have a certain amount of
foundation in truth. According to a loquacious cabman I listened to in
Vladikavkaz, a coach was stopped one day on the Georgian road, twelve
miles outside the town. It contained a pleasure party, a number of
ladies and gentlemen out to spend the day, and they were all despoiled
of their clothing. The robbers covered them with guns and called on them
to undress and throw all their possessions in a heap on the road or be
shot. And they accordingly returned to the town in Adam’s raiment.
I had one moment of thrills this day. I had just emerged from a wood on
to a grassy ridge of the mountain, when I saw a shepherd’s
camping-ground guarded by dogs. The dogs saw me at the same moment, and
all four came tearing along towards me. They were something between
bull-dogs and mastiffs, and I had a good mind to climb a tree at once.
But something restrained me; the dogs were perhaps too close; I had a
cudgel in my hand, I grasped it firmly and awaited the onslaught. Every
dog’s eye was riveted on my stick, and they all slackened speed suddenly
and skirmished to bite at my heels or dart under my arm. They failed and
slunk off; they were only uncivilised collies after all. I was relieved.
Many a man in my position might have fired a revolver and then the
owners of the dogs would have declared war. I recalled the words of
Freshfield, the mountaineer, concerning such positions: “It is judicious
to avoid petty wrangles with Ossetes and to tranquillise their
sheep-dogs with ice-axes rather than to dismiss them with firearms.” A
shepherd came up to me in a few minutes and began the common series of
interrogations—Where do you come from? Where are you going to? Why? What
are you—a Russian? I answered him very vaguely that I was going to
Dalin-Dalin, a little village near by, on business, and that I was not a
Russian. “You ought to be afraid to go in these parts,” said he, “many
men get killed; a mate of mine was murdered near here last month.”
I heard him with a little thrill, but did not alter my plans. I found a
bush, and just after sunset, when the gnats sang in their mournful
choirs, I made my bed. I was soon deep snuggled in my waterproof
sleeping-sack—my dear old friend—night sharer of so many vicissitudes
and slumbers. A wisp of _crêpe de chine_ about my head, I feared not the
meanest of all foes, the mosquitoes that range two to each hair on the
hand. I know what happened as the darkness deepened: the birds slunk to
sleep in the bushes, all save the night-jars and the owls that gurgled
and hooted among the pines and maples. The dark moths flitted to and fro
in the first breathless darkness of the summer night, the large red ants
carried off on their backs the dead gnats that had perished at my hands
at supper-time. Then the pale full moon arose out of a depth of soft
white cloud—passionless, perfect. Still the owls hooted as I fell
asleep. The night passed. Morning came and I arose gaily. Nought of what
the hillman suggested had come to pass; only once I had started, and
that at the touch of the wet snout of an inquisitive hedgehog. I
remember now how piggy scuttled off. But two minutes after that I was
sleeping again. There had been one other event of the night. About two
hours before dawn the rain came softly down. A broad cloud had gently
breasted this little mountain upon which I was encamped. It rained
steadily and much. I curled myself more completely within my sack and
let it rain. In the little moments when I did not sleep I heard the
drops falling on the cover above me. Had any wild robber come upon this
strange bundle under the bush his woodlore must have told him it was no
beast or bird ever seen upon the hills or under the sky. I think he
would have crossed himself and passed by.
So passed my first night of my tramp in the mountains, quite a unique
night, soft, strange, wonderful. I felt I had begun a new life. I had
entered into a new world and come into communion with Nature in a way as
yet unknown.
The rain had stopped as the first light came up into the sky. I arose
gaily, pleasantly cool and fit after the sleep and the rain. By the
faint light I saw the valley below me, and the grand grey rocks on the
other side. I looked up to the summit of my own mountain, and as I
munched a remainder of dry bread felt all the unspeakable delight of an
awakening with the birds after having spent the night with the
mountains. But, indeed, I had awakened before the birds, and as yet the
mountains slept, the long grey line of bearded warriors, calm, majestic,
unmoved, invincible. Nature in reverence lay hushed beneath them,
waiting for a signal. I passed carefully over the wet grasses—softly,
secretly, as if everywhere children slept.
Clamber, clamber, clamber, up then to the highest point. At last I stood
there with the dew on my heels. All the east lay before me, and such a
horizon as one can only see when looking from the northern spurs of the
Caucasus. The sun had not risen, and from north to south lay an
illimitable length of deep blood red, blood without life, red without
light—dead, fearful, unfathomable red. I stood as one convicted, as a
too-daring one, awe-stricken. From the place where I had slept I had not
dreamed of this; no tinge on the morning twilight had suggested what the
obstacle of the peak withheld. I felt pale and grey as a morning mist,
insubstantial as a shadow. The grasses trembled wet at my feet. Behind
me the austere mountains sat unmoved, deep in undisturbed sleep or
contemplation. No bird sang, no beast moved, not even the wet trees
dripped. All waited for a signal, and I waited. Death was passed—life
not come. I was at the gates of the day, but had come early....
I was looking westward when the world awoke, looking at the grey
mountains. Suddenly it was as if they blushed. Crimson appeared in a
valley and ran and spread along the cliffs and rocks and over chasms,
suffusing the whole westward scene. It was the world blushing as the
first kiss of the sun awakened it to a new day. And as I turned, there
in the west was the hero, raising himself unaided victoriously upward.
It was the sun, the hot, glorious one, uprising, glistening, burning out
of a sea of scarlet, changing the blood into ruby and firing every
raindrop to a diamond. Most glorious it was, seen, as it were, by one
alone, and that one myself, upon a peak adding my few feet to its five
thousand and taking also that crimson reflection, that rosette or favour
accorded those presented at the opening of the day. At how many town
pageants had one been a mocker, but here was ritual that stood majestic,
imperious in its meaning—only to be revered.
The ceremony was at length over. The day was opened, the freedom of the
world had been given, one had but to step down into the gardens laid
open to man.
Down the hill and over a moor the way led to the little red-roofed
village called Dalin-Dalin. Ten steep downhill miles they were, and
every mile waved invitingly. Onward then downward, and with steady
steps, for the rain has left everything slippery. Wet it is, wet, and
the grasses and fern and scrub are up to the waist, but the sun will dry
both these and me, and by noon we shall all be hot and thirsty. Through
a long wood the path goes. Last week, when I was in the woods, the
ground was golden with cowslips, but the fairies’ pensioners are now all
gone. Only the tall tiger lilies look down like modest maidens, and
brown-green-fingered ferns hold out little monkey hands. Wet, wet—in the
boots the water squirts and squeezes. A hare pauses in front and then
bounces off—the long-legged, easy runner. So steep and wet is the path
that it is difficult to keep one’s footing, and one has to hold on to
the branches to keep balance. Mile after mile the distance gets
accomplished, and the wood is passed. Beyond the wood is a valley of
nettles, immense docks, waste comfrey, canterbury bells and entwined
convolvulus, such a bed of rank vegetable as only the black virgin
earth, the mountain mist and hot noonday sun can bring forth. Through
that! There is even country ahead and less chance of snakes. Yonder the
wild rose blooms and the eglantine and snowy guelder rose. The sun is
getting hotter, and half-dazed flies wake to a morrow they had not
expected; they buzz stupidly at one’s nose and ears—they have some stale
news to impart. It is morning again, they say.
Here is Dalin-Dalin. Just outside the village a dead horse lies on the
moor, and the flies fluster about it. Was it killed in some night affray
with robbers, I wonder?
The mountains lie peacefully in the sunshine. The birds sing; myriadfold
humming and stirring and chirping is in the grass. The rose bushes are
daintily apparelled, and tall spurge lifts its yellow face to look at
the beauties around. Sleeping in the copse, even in more abundance than
yesterday, are next month’s flowers: time and the sun are softly wooing
them. A few mallow and lily and rose will have faded away and given
place to new revellers, new festivities. The morning sun, warmer every
moment, promises for to-morrow, to-morrow week, to-morrow month, the
blooming of the poppy and the ripening of the vine.
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