Part 30 (1/2)
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
A STORM IN THE CAUCASUS--NIGHT JOURNEY; DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES--STAVROPOL--HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CAUCASUS AND THE BLACK SEA COSSACKS.
At four o'clock on a dull morning we left Piatigorsk of charming memory, to strike once more into the mountains, where by the by, in less than an hour, we were met by one of the grandest and most violent storms I remember ever having witnessed. We had to endure its force for two long hours; and our situation was the more critical, since our _yems.h.i.+k_ (coachman), though quite familiar with the road, seemed almost at his wits' end. It was only by the gleam of the lightning he was able to make such brief observations of the ground as enabled him to guide his horses. This was certainly a very precarious resource, but there is a special providence for travellers. Lost in the midst of the mountains, and our sole hope of safety resting on the coolness and skill of a peasant, we escaped, we scarce knew how, from a seemingly inevitable catastrophe. A furious burst of rain, the last expiring effort of the storm, at last cleared the sky, which became coloured towards the west with purple bands, that contrasted gloriously with the darkness of the rest of the firmament. A magnificent rainbow, with one end springing from the highest peak of the Caucasus, whilst the other was lost in the mists of evening, gleamed before us for a few moments, and gradually dissolved away.
At half-past seven we reached the station, wet, weary, stupified, and very much surprised to find ourselves safe and sound after having pa.s.sed through so many dangers. Nevertheless, this recent alert by no means made us forego our original plan of travelling all night in order to reach Stavropol the next day. Nothing is so soon forgotten in travelling as danger. One is no sooner out of one sc.r.a.pe than he is ready to get into another, and a worse one, without giving a thought to his past alarms. You must get over the ground: that is your ruling thought. As for taking precautions, calculating the good or the bad chances of the journey, or troubling oneself about dangers to come, by reason of those already incurred, all this is quite out of the question. We were quite bent on travelling all night, but the idea was totally discountenanced by the postmaster and the Cossacks whom we fell in with at the station.
They told us there was a fair at Stavropol, and that the road was always somewhat dangerous on such occasions, particularly after sunset. A night or two before, several persons returning from the fair had been surprised and plundered by the Circa.s.sians, in spite of the many military posts along the road. Several other ugly stories were told us, in a tone that at last shook our resolution, and we were beginning very reluctantly to give up our project, when an unexpected incident made us recur to it again.
A Polish officer, who until then had kept aloof in a dark corner, seeing the annoyance we felt at this unforeseen delay, joined in the conversation, and offered to set out at once with us, if his company would be sufficient to restore our confidence. He, too, was going to Stavropol, and it was all the same to him whether he travelled that night or next day. The proposal, which was made with the most obliging frankness, agreed too well with our wishes to allow of any further hesitation, and we at once accepted it. The Pole had with him a servant very well armed, and the two together were such a reinforcement to our little troop as almost insured our safety. With great exultation we set about our preparations for departure, but the more experienced postmaster gave with reluctance the order to put the horses to, and could not help crossing himself repeatedly when he saw us get into the britchka, whilst the two yems.h.i.+ks failed not to imitate his example, and to lift their fur caps several times in token of devotion. The Russians always find means to mingle crossings with all the other acts of their hands, by which process they set their consciences entirely at rest. I am satisfied they cross themselves even when thieving, partly from habit, and partly in the hope of escaping without detection.
Once out of the yard, the pleasure of travelling on a mild and dim night through an unknown country, that presented itself to our eyes under vague and mysterious forms, so engrossed our minds that we thought no more of Circa.s.sians, or broken ground, or danger of any kind. The Pole's carriage preceded ours, and his Cossack began to sing in a low tone one of those sweet melancholy airs which are peculiar to the Malorussians.
The plaintive melody, mingled with the tinkling of the horses' bells, and the motion of the carriage lulled me into a dreamy repose, half way between sleeping and waking. I know not how long this state of hallucination lasted; but I was startled out of it by a pistol-shot fired close to me, and before I could collect my senses a second was fired, but at some distance. The carriage had stopped, the night was very dark, and my companions were quite silent. I was a good deal frightened, until my husband explained to me that the Polish officer had lost his way, and that our dragoman had fired his pistol as a signal to him, and that the second shot was an answer to the first. Being now satisfied that we had not half a dozen Circa.s.sians about us, I recovered courage enough to laugh at my first dismay. Anthony left us to look for our travelling companion, after arranging with us that a third shot should be the token of his having found him. We pa.s.sed half an hour in a state of painful anxiety, teasing ourselves with a thousand alarming conjectures, and dreading lest the report of fire-arms should bring down on us some of the Circa.s.sians who might be prowling in the neighbourhood. What would I not have then given to be far away from that road which we had been told was so terrible, and of which my imagination still more magnified the dangers!
At last the preconcerted signal was heard, and Anthony soon afterwards returned, but alone, and told us that we must go on without the Pole, whose pereclatnoi had stuck fast in a bad spot, and could not be extricated until daylight. The night was so dark, and the ground so dangerous, that notwithstanding his wish to ease our minds, the officer could not venture to come to us. This news was not calculated to abate our anxiety; we might in a moment be in the same predicament as the officer, supposing nothing worse should happen. The road, as the yems.h.i.+k told us, wound round a rock, and what proved that it was dangerous was that it was flanked in places with slight posts and rails. Such a precaution is so rare in Russia, that it may be taken as a certain indication of no common danger. We debated awhile whether it would not be more prudent to remain where we were until daybreak; but the coachman was so terrified at the thought of pa.s.sing a night in the mountains, that he gave us no peace till we moved forward. The prospect of tumbling down a precipice was decidedly less terrible to him than the thought of having to do with the Circa.s.sians. Alighting and leading his horses, he followed Anthony, who carefully sounded one side of the road. As we advanced on our perilous descent, the sound of a torrent roaring at the bottom smote our ears, as if to increase our perplexity; but in an hour's time we found ourselves safe and sound on the plain, and soon afterwards we reached the station, where our arrival excited great astonishment. The postmaster was enraged against his colleague, and could not conceive how he had come to give us horses at night, in defiance of the strict rules of the police. For his part he a.s.sured us that his duty forbade him to do any such thing, and that it was useless to ask him. I need not say, however, that this declaration itself was useless, for we had had quite enough of the road for that night. I never enjoyed the most comfortable chamber in a French or German hotel so much as I did the miserable lodging in which I then lay down on a bench covered only with a carpet.
We did not quit the station next day until the arrival of our travelling companion, whom we had reluctantly left in so unpleasant a predicament.
He was severely bruised by his fall, but laughed heartily at his mishap.
We set out together, very glad to get away from those fine mountains that were then gleaming in the rays of the morning. The events of the preceding night, though after all not very dramatic, had left so painful an impression on our mind, that the very sight of the mountains still caused us a secret dread. Instead, therefore, of quitting with regret so picturesque a region, the more homely and commonplace the country became, the more we admired it. We were just in the humour to be delighted with the steppes of the Black Sea; so much does the appreciation of scenery depend on the state of the mind.
During all this day's journey the road was covered with carriages, hors.e.m.e.n, and pedestrians, repairing to the fair of Stavropol, and affording samples of all the motley population of the vicinity, Circa.s.sians, Cossacks, Turcomans, Georgians, and Tatars; some in brilliant costume, caracoling on their high-bred Kalmuck or Persian horses, others stowed away with their families in carts covered with hides; others driving before them immense flocks of sheep or swine, that encompa.s.sed the carriages and hors.e.m.e.n, and occasioned some very comical incidents. Among all those whom business or pleasure was calling to the fair, we particularly noticed a very handsome young Circa.s.sian mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, and riding constantly beside a pavosk of more elegance than the rest, and the curtains of which were let down.
This was enough to stimulate our curiosity, for in these romantic regions the slightest incident affords matter for endless conjectures. I would have given something to be allowed to lift one of the curtains of the mysterious pavosk, or at the least to keep it in view until our arrival in Stavropol, but our postilion did not partake in our curiosity, and putting his horses to a gallop, he soon made us lose sight of the group. The last low range of the Caucasus, which gradually diminishes in height to Stavropol, formed an irregular line on our left, in which we caught many hasty glimpses of charming scenery. The vegetation still retained a great degree of freshness, in consequence of the mildness of the temperature, which at this season would have appeared to us extraordinary even in more southern countries.
It was late in the evening when we reached Stavropol, so that we could not avail ourselves of our letters of introduction, and were obliged to hunt for a lodging in the hotels of the princ.i.p.al street. But they were all full, and with great difficulty we succeeded, with the help of our Polish friend, in getting admission to the Great Saint Nicholas, a shabby inn, the common room of which was already tenanted by a dozen travellers. Nevertheless, we secured a little corner, and there we contrived to form a tolerable sort of divan with our cus.h.i.+ons and pelisses. I had now an opportunity of remarking how little notice travellers take of each other in this country. In this room, filled with people whose habits were so different from ours, we were as much at our ease as if the apartment belonged to us alone; and neither our language, behaviour, nor dress, appeared to attract any undue attention.
Stavropol, the capital of the whole Caucasus, is a very agreeable town, and appeared to us so much the more so from the animation lent it by the fair. But I perceive that in the course of these travels I have not named one town without immediately joining the word _fair_ to it. It must be owned that chance was most bountiful to us in throwing in our way so many occasions for conceiving a high idea of the commerce of Russia. At Stavropol, however, the fair occupied our attention much less than General Grabe, who was just a week returned from an expedition against the Circa.s.sians. His staff filled the whole town with the noise of their martial deeds. Every officer had his story of some glorious exploit, whereof of course he was himself the hero. Though so recently returned, General Grabe was already in busy preparation for another campaign, on which he built the greatest hopes. The good gentleman even pressed my husband very strongly to accompany him, as if it were a mere party of pleasure. He offered him his tent, instruments, and every thing necessary to render the excursion beneficial to science. Under any other circ.u.mstances my husband would no doubt have yielded to the temptation of visiting the tribes of the Caucasus in the very heart of their mountains, under the protection of a whole army, but it would have been madness to undertake such a journey after those we had but just completed.
Before we finally take leave of the Caucasian regions, it will not be amiss to give some historical account of that part of the empire, and of the Cossacks of the Black Sea, to whom is committed the perilous task of protecting the frontiers against the incessant attacks of the formidable mountain tribes.
It was by virtue of an ukase promulgated by Catherine II. in 1783, that Russia took full and entire possession of all the countries north of the Kouban and the Terek, which of yore formed the almost exclusive dominions of numerous hordes of black Nogais, some of them independent, others acknowledging the authority of the Tatar khans of the Crimea. But previously to this period the tzars were already in military occupation of the country, for it was in 1771 that they completed the armed line of the Caucasus, begun by Peter the Great, at the mouth of the Terek.
At first the new conquest was put under the direction of the military governor of Astrakhan; but the state of the southern frontiers soon became so serious in consequence of the war with the mountaineers, that it was found advisable to form all the provinces conquered by Catherine II. north of the Caucasus, into a distinct province. The government of the Caucasus thus const.i.tuted, is bounded on the north by the Kouma and the Manitch, which divide it from the territory of Astrakhan and from that of the Don Cossacks; on the west by the country of the Black Sea Cossacks; on the east by the Caspian, and on the south by the armed line of the Kouban and the Terek.
At the foot of the Caucasus, as everywhere else, the Russian occupation occasioned great migrations. All the black Nogais of the right bank of the Kouban, who had fought against Russia, withdrew beyond the river among the tribes of the mountain. The Kabardians forsook the environs of Georgief, and sought refuge deeper in the Caucasian chain, and it was only the black Nogais of the barren plains between the Terek and the Kouma that remained in their old abodes. Cut off from the independent tribes since the erection of the fortresses of Kisliar and Mosdok, they took no part in the events of the war, and so they remained in peaceable possession of their territory. As for the Kalmucks, who had been very bold and active auxiliaries of Russia, they preserved intact all the pasturages they now possess in the government of the Caucasus.
The Muscovite sway once established, and the frontiers put in a state of defence, the next step was to occupy the country along the northern verge of the Caucasus in some other way than by light troops. It was therefore determined to form numerous colonies of Muscovites and Cossacks, a project which the absolute power of the tzars enabled them quickly to fulfil. The present villages in the centre of the province along the banks of the Kouban, the Terek, the Kouma, the Egorlik and the Kalaous, were erected, and the military colonies of the Black Sea Cossacks were founded; several large proprietors seconded the efforts of the government, and prompted either by the spirit of speculation, or by the superabundance of their slaves, formed large establishments on the lands that had been gratuitously conferred upon them. Attempts, too, were made to settle some of the German families of Saratof on the Kouma.
But the results were far from realising the hopes of the government.
Compressed between the narrow limits in the districts of Stavropol and Georgief, bounded on the north and east by the uncultivated lands of the Turcomans and Kalmucks, on the south by the armed lines, continually attacked and overrun by the mountaineers, the colonies soon ceased to wear a thriving appearance; many sacked and burnt villages never rose again from their ashes, the German colony on the Kouma was destroyed, and now there remains no hope that the number of agricultural inhabitants will ever become sufficient to lend any real aid to the projects of the tzars. We have been in a great many villages on the Kouma, and the confluents of the Manitch, and found them scarcely able to supply their own wants. Their contributions to the commissariat are almost nothing, and the armies are always obliged to procure their stores from the central provinces of Russia.
Some settlements, indeed, such as Vladimirofka and Bourgon Madjar on the Kouma, directed by able men, have attained a high degree of prosperity; but these are exceptions, and they owe their wealth to the cultivation of the mulberry and the pine, and their numerous corn-mills, which const.i.tute for them a virtual monopoly. The cultivation of corn has had no share in the welfare of these colonies, the nature of the climate having always been unfavourable to it: the people of Vladimirofka and the neighbouring villages think themselves fortunate if they can raise corn enough for their own consumption.
Thus, while we cordially approve of the principle that suggested the foundation of these advanced posts of the Slavic population, and that strives to enlarge their growth, we are nevertheless convinced that in the present state of things, with the war in the Caucasus becoming every day more formidable, these colonies can never be conducive to the progress of Russia; unless, indeed, that should happen, which we think most unlikely, namely, that the government should so extend its conquests as to become undisputed possessor of the fertile regions beyond the Kouban, where the colonist could command sufficient natural resources.
The Cossacks better fulfilled the purpose for which they were settled on the frontier. Active, enterprising, and accustomed to partisan warfare, they were admirably adapted for resisting the incursions of the mountaineers. If they have been less efficient of late years, the blame must be laid on the inordinate demands of the government, the extreme contempt with which they are treated by the Russian generals, and, above all, the extinction of the privileges which had been wisely conferred on them in the beginning, and which alone could guarantee to the empire the maintenance of their vigorous military organisation.
The Black Sea Cossacks, as every one is aware, are descended from the Zaporogues of the Dniepr, whose famous military corporation appears to have been established towards the end of the fifteenth century.
Continually engaged against the Tatars of the Crimea, the Ukraine Cossacks founded at this period a sort of colony near the mouths of the Dniepr, consisting exclusively of unmarried men, whose special avocation it was to guard the frontiers. Their numbers rapidly increased, deserters from all nations being attracted to them by the hope of booty, and their setcha, or head-quarters, on an island of the Dniepr, became famous throughout the land for the military services and the valour of its inhabitants. In 1540, such was the importance of these colonies to Poland, that King Sigismund granted a large tract of land above the cataracts to the Zaporogues, in order to strengthen the barrier erected by them between his dominions and the Tatars.