A NIGHT IN A KOUTAN
CHEKAI and his companion shepherds living in the koutan were clad in
rags that were extremely dirty, their faces red, unshaven and wild, and
their feet and legs bare, except of dirt. They were extremely
apologetic. “You are clean,” said Gudaev, “but God has given us to work
in filth, as you see, but we are men and Christian Ossetines.” I put
them at their ease with a smile and went to inspect the koutan. It was
an extensive dwelling, for the most part dug out of the mountain side.
The walls were made of boulders plastered wind-tight with stable filth,
the roof of pine branches, peat and hay. There were no windows, and so
the whole had no light beyond what came in at the door, or from the hole
in the roof; but what light there was sufficed to show that the house
was divided by fences into a number of compartments for the reception of
horses, cows, sheep and goats.
One of these compartments, in the shelter of a ponderous rock, was the
shepherds’ own room. Three bits of fir trunk made the seats, and between
these trunks and the walls were the beds of hay where they slept. Under
the rock the red-grey embers of last night’s fire still smouldered. I
went in and sat down, being tired and cold after my wanderings in the
wet snow on the pass. Chekai and his companions milked the cows, brought
in the horses and the sheep, separated and drove into separate pens the
rams, the ewes and the lambs, so that the dark koutan became full of the
cries of animals. I myself assisted in the separating of the sheep, for
Chekai, who had asked my name, kept calling out, “Stepan, come here,”
“Stepan, go there,” and I was fain to obey.
Achmet brought me the two quails he had killed, and showed me them with
pride. He must have been a sure marksman with stones, and I thought with
some ruefulness of my recent encounter when I had been somewhat in the
position of the poor quails, but I said nothing. Gudaev, having milked
the cows, took up the business of hacking firewood out of a tough pine
log. In his intervals of rest he brought armfuls of wet branches and put
them on the fire. I was given a wooden basinful of fresh milk, which
Achmet had strained through hay before giving me. Presently the animals
were all housed and a bonfire made up on the rude hearth. Clouds had
crawled once again into the evening sky, there was a flash of lightning
and a long roll of thunder; the dancing hailstones rushed down, and
following them thick, soft, flaky snow. I was glad I had not tried to
cross the pass that night.
[Illustration: A KOUTAN]
It was very dark, and the wet wood was filling the koutan with smoke,
but Chekai, who had cut up a great number of little sticks, made a
brilliant illumination by setting fire to them. They had a contrivance
of tin about three feet from the ground, and in this they burned the
resinous pine splinters for hours. At length the brushwood burst into
flame and dried and caught the thicker branches; in half an hour we had
a roaring big fire. Gudaev hung a large iron pot over it and boiled
water; Chekai settled down to pluck the quails; Achmet prepared to make
bread. When the water had boiled Chekai informed me they would make
copatchka. Achmet took maize flour, salt and milk and boiling water, and
kneaded a dough into flat cakes about the size of soup plates. Gudaev
stood them on end in front of the fire, and toasted them first one side
and then the other. When they were done he buried them under the
grey-red ashes and left them to cook. This done, he took from a wooden
peg in the mud of the wall an iron violin with two strings, and
commenced a tune of that sighing and moaning and shrieking style
characteristic of Caucasian music. Chekai sang, and all the while
plucked the little quails. When the birds had been quite disfeathered,
singed and cleaned, the shepherd transfixed them together on a stake and
toasted them at the fire. Achmet filled up the pot over the fire with
milk, flour and salt, thereby preparing soup.
I had fallen back asleep when suddenly Chekai called out, “Stepan, get
up and eat!” This I was not loth to do, and in a minute behold me
tasting for the first time hot copatchka and roast quail. It must be
said the bird was tasty though it was small. The milk soup made my teeth
dance, it was so hot. Chekai began a conversation. “What are the
English—Christians or Mahometans?” asked he. “Is England far away? Where
does it lie?” I replied that it was four or five thousand versts to the
north-west. Chekai whistled. “Beyond the mountains?” said he. “And have
they such poor and dirty people there? Look how poor I am, look how I’m
dressed.”
“I expect you’re not so poor as you look,” said I. “The owners of the
sheep must pay you well, but you leave the money in the village with
your wife and family, or your mother.”
The shepherd frowned and then grinned. I had apparently hit on the
truth.
The time came to make an end of the feast and lie down to sleep. They
gave me the best place between a fir plank and a sheep fence close to
the hot embers. I covered myself entirely up in my travelling-bed, and
was secure in that both from vermin and from dirt. The three others
disposed themselves in different parts of the smoky cavern and began to
snore horribly. I slept heavily.
At dawn, through custom, I awoke. Chekai was already stirring and had
gathered fresh wood for the fire. He warned me it was necessary to hurry
if he was to show me the track, for he had much work to do. I showed
immediate alacrity. The weather seemed promising, and I was full of hope
that I should reach the other side of the mountains in time for
breakfast. We had a ten minutes’ parley over money. Chekai wasn’t quite
sure that he couldn’t hold me up to ransom _à la Hadgi Stavros_. But he
was eventually content to receive half-a-crown, together with the
present of a pretty water-jar I had bought a week before in Georgia, and
which he coveted. In exchange for the water-jar he presented me with his
staff, which was stout and long and served me better in the long run
than I could have guessed. I ought to have taken another meal of
copatchka and milk before starting. A bottle of vodka in my pocket would
not have been amiss. I did not dream that after two hours’ walking my
heart would be beating so violently through exertion that I should fear
to perish in the snow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------