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LATE nuiTISII VICE-CONSUL AT KEUTCH LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET ^ubliflfetrs in ©rbinara to ^tr gtajtsfn i\t Qmti 1831 All thj/ils rvstivi'U CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. SPORT I\ THE nilMKA. Outfit— The droshky— A merry party— The Straits of Kertch— The fltoppe— Wild-fowl — (!rops— The Malos-'I'lio ' Sturrio Metchat ' -Game— Tscherkess grey hoiinda— Stalking bustards —A picnic— Night on the steppe iv\<;k CHAPTER II. CRASNOI LAIS. frozen sea— Swarms of wild-fowl— The Indo-Europoan tele- graph—Sledging on the Azov— A desolate scene— 'J'amau— Journey inland— Tumeruk — Hotels- A dangerous sleep- Foxes— Wolves- A hasty retreat— Ekaterinodar- Supper in the forest of Crasnoi Lais— An exciting night's sport— Driving the forest— (^s.sack beaters— Wild doer— Other game— The bag— Itations of vodka— A Cossack orgy— Vulpine sagacity — Wolf stories — Return to Kertch 10 CHAPTER III. ODESSA AND MISKITCIIEE. Mountaineers and Shikarees— Outfit— Journey from London to Odessa— Snipe-shooting on the Dnieper —A drunken yera- stchik- A collision— Prince VorontzofT-Aloupka- Yalta— Livadia and Orianda-Miski tehee lake— A Tartar butcher- Native hovels— A shooting party on the lake— A dreary tivouac 41 CONTENl'S. CHAPTER IV. THE RED FOREST AND BLACK SEA COAST. Joiiriii'v to 'luintvn — Downpour on tliesteppt" — Tscherkess bourkas — LoiifT-tiiilod liorsos — Abaenco of cultivation — The Moujiks — Causca of political discontent in ItuHaia — Veneration for the Czar — Clienpeninp supplies — A lUissian writer on Isnplish- wonien — Post stations— A terrible trajfedy — Hotela — Ekate- rinodar — The fair — Russian tea — Uussian police — Bivouack- inff with Cossack foresters — Exciting sport — Shooting a white boar — Sad disappointment — Phea.sant-shooting— A Cossack colonel — An execrable journey — ('ancasian women — Great oonsumjjtion of supplies — In a ( 'ossack saddle — Mineral springs — A scorcliing bath — Lotus-eaters — Incidents of the road — An insolent Tartar — Parting PA OF. m» CJ> CHAPTER V. IlEIMANS DATCII. I)iiap.«e — Tscherkess emigrants — By the sea-shore — Superb scenery — Drunken guides — A ('ossack station — Bears — Take possession of a ruined villa — Hiding our provisions — Wild swine -Astray in the jungle — A rough breakfast — Boars in lilo A uiisslire — Forest fruit — Lose our horses — A panther — Night-watch — Shooting in the dark — On the trail — Btirbv — A friendly Cossaclc — Deserted by my servants . !).'{ CHAPTER VI. COLOVINSKY. Lunch in the forest — Picturesque riding — A spill — Telegraph shanty at Golovinsky — Robinson Crusoe — Native guns — Tpcks of game — Multitudes of pheasants — Paucity of native hunters — Tscherkess mocassins — Experiences of forest life — Killing a bear — Cooking him— Another bag — A lost chance — An«:dotes of * Michael Michaelovitch ' — Shooting n boar . 110 COXT/:XTS. vu C If AFTER Vir. DENSE COVERTS. r.w.K Unsuccessful sport-Bruin nnd Stepan-lJInck bread and onions -Forest music — Mosquitoes — Ticks and other insects- llruin's fondness for honey— Butterflies— Our lard.-r-Narrow escape of Stepan - Unlucky days-Watcl.in}^ for swiiie- Otters— A cold vigil— An exaap -.ating march . . . j^jo CHAPTER VIII. HUNTING WITH DOOS. lielitting — Our monprrels — Shipping our spoils — Visitors — Stepan's yarns— The hedgehog— Legend of the bracken— 1 he Euxine in a fury-Trebogging— Traces of Tscherkess vill gts — ICnorraous boars-Their feeding grounds— Lose a bjai- Inipenetrable thickets hiding the proximity of big game— A rare day's sport— Sliooting in the moonlight-Au expedition —Fever— Precautions against it — Unsuccessful sport and hard fare 145 CHAPTER IX. RETURN TO KERTCII. lieturn to Ileimans Datch-Bears-Stepan s shooting apparatus —Journey to Duapse— A delightful dinner— Interview wit i the Governor- Insects-German farm-A dangerous ad- venture—A wedding supper— Leave Duapse for I'lkaterinodur —Knmsky fair— Russian rouglis- Peasant women— A slu)W booth— A hazardous road — Inexpensive tiavelling— Ekate- rinodar— JoWe d:h6te at the Petersburg hotel— The treasury — Droshky-racing— A beaten rival-Caucasian fish— Arrival at Kertch l(i5 Till tiKvr/uX rs. CHAPTER X. TIKLIS. Tlie liiidSD-Tin-kish Wnr — Siikhoum — Alleged abundance ofganui Poti — My follow-travoUers — Sport in Kutuis— Arrival in Tillis — Hotels and other IbutureH of the town — Tho British <'on8iil — ( h-gan-grindera in requout — A ' happy day'— Drink- ing habits — Native wines — German settlers — Shooting expe- dition— A caravan — Karitis steppe — A lawless country- Fevers — Antelope-hunting — An unpleasant adventure: run- iiing for dear life — A Avouuded antelope — The lions of Tillis — Museum and bazaar — Schoolboys — Prevalence of uniforms and orders — Phenomena of Russian life — Buying a travelling pass — Professor Bryce's ascent of Ararat .... r.MiK im CHAPTER XL EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN. Start from Tiflis — My yemstchik — Trr.velling carts — Caucasian road-mukers — ( 'amel caravans — On tho bleak steppe — Persian hawking — Subterranean dwellings — Shooting at Kariur — ]']lizabetpol — An execrable journey — Hawks and starling — Jknditti — Curing official corruption at Tiflis — Goktchai — A wearying day's sport — Fear of highwaymen — My guide, AUai — Arrival at Gerdaoul — Hospitable Lesghians 231 CHAPTER XII. THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS, Gerdaoul — Shooting partridges — Native wine-vaults — Expedition among the hills — Native houses — An inhospitable village — A dangerous ride — A welcome r«ception — Shepherd-boys — The Jjesghians — Russian love for the Czar — Unsuitable educa- tion— Mountain-climbing — Magnificent scenery — Red deer — Vegetation — A chamois — A weary descent — A happy people —Photographing the scenery — A 'Baboushka' — 'Develop- m» co.\Tj':.\Ts. )X I'AUK '.M.K injr ' our pliotogmphs—A inoiintaiii chi'ilt't— The snow peaks -Wild floats juid sheep — DilKcult m(nintniiuHMin}r - A n ullurinjr clinso— Suspended over a precipice — A bleak nijrhta lo(l>riMj; —Mountain turkeys —JUack pliensants— Luinraer-^iuis — Advice to traveUcrs— Return to (Joktohai . . . .-Jo'} im CHAPTKH Xlll. FHOM GOKTCHAI TO LENKOKAV. • Koit;.'h travelling— Shooting by the way— Sheniaklia nnd Aksu — Tarantasses and post-roads — A wretchid .station ~ Mud volcanoes and naphtha sprinfr^ - llustards— On the road t(» Salian— Swarms of wild-fowl- .V rascally official— Disap- pointed hopps—A good Samaritan — Rival hosts— Asiatic fever— The Mooghan steppf - l^elicans and myriads of other birds— Tartar orgies— Ha'u led secretaries: the Molochans and Skoptsi— Arrival at Lenkoraii- A IVrsian gunsmith— Fellow-sportsmen 28/ 131 UHAPTER XIV. SHORES OF THE CASPIAN. — RETURN TO TIFLIS. Lenkoran— Abundance of game— Ery vool forest— NatiA e fowlers —A hunting lodge— Swarming coverts— Wild boar— A paia- dise for sportsmen— Pigs at bay—' Old Shirka ' and his quarry —A dying eagle— Caspian woodpeckers— Festive nights- Watching for a tiger— Forest life by night— The eagle-owl and his prey— End of a long vigil— The rainy season— The streets of Lenkoran— The return journey to Tiflis— Adventure at adji Kabool — Experiences of post-travel — Bullying a station-master— Armenian Protestants — Russian telegraph service— In miserable plight— A spill over a precipice— Refit- ting our tarantasse— ^r«7«wicM<«w ad hominem— An awkward predicament— Chasing a yemstchik— Renewed life at Tiflis— Great snow-fall— Running down antelope— The ' black death ' 311 COXTE.VTS. CHAPTKR XV. THE RAIN.S. PACK iotr-(,,a.s,nj, wild boar - Red-deer - Turks and (<. i. Sotc-ba~Lvnxo«-(Ja,ue in the Cauca V ^?'"^"'''^^- -A wounded .ow-]3eautiful «ceT \7^ '"'"^"'^^ /""'•' tont inundated-Surir,7wXf "^ 'T~^^ terrible catastrophe- Welcome l^Ilnp/r ^*'^'~'^ scene-Eludin, Le atorrX-dt,? 7 t^r'^^^^^ ^"^^^ -CWsack oats iZ;\ n '' ^'de-Stru.gli... for lii^ England . ! ^a^ar-Laid up with fever-Itoturn to ^ «■.* « .,u.a to ,krec.,uarurs .fan £.,yliA ,„.V, I r.\r,K SPORT IN THE CRIMEA AND THE CAUCASUS. uo CHAPTER I. SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. Outfit — The droshky— A merry party— The Straits of Kertch— The steppe— Wild-fowl— Crops— The Malos— The ' Starrie Met- chat ' -Game— Tscherkess greyhounds — Stalking bustards— A picnic — Night on the steppe. Scarcely a week's journey from London, with de- licious climates and any quantity of game, it always seemed a marvel to me how few English sportsmen ever found their way to the Crimea or Caucasus. It is now something more than five years ago since I first made myself acquainted with the breezy rose- mary-clad steppes of the former, or the low wooded hills on the Black Sea coast of the latter. For nearly three years resident at Kertch, I had ample opportunity of testing all the pleasures of the steppe, and a better shooting-ground for the wild- fowler or man who likes a lot of hard work, with a plentiful and varied bag at the end of his day, could nowhere be found. Of course the sportsman B SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. in the Crimea must rough it to a certain extent, but his roughing it, if he only has a civil tongue and cheery manner, will be a good deal of the ' beer and beefsteak ' order. The Russians are hospitable to all men, especially to the sportsman ; and the peasants, even the Tartars, are cordial good fellows if taken the right way. On the steppes you need rarely want for a roof overhead, if you prefer stuffiness, smoke, and do- mestic insects to wild ones, with dew and the night air. If you can put up with sour cream (very good food when you are used to it), black bread, an arboose, fresh or half-pickled, with a bumper of fearful unsweetened gin (vodku) to digest the foregoing, you need never suffer huxiger long. But for the most part sportsmen take their food with them. P( 'haps if my readers Tvill let me, it would be better to take them at once on to the steppe, and tell them all this en route. Imagine then that for the last two days you have been hard at work out of office hours loading cartridges with every variety of shot, from the small bullets used for the bustard down to the dust-shot for the quail. Here, in Kertch, take a victim's advice : make your own cartridges, don't buy them. The month is July ; the first of July, with an intensely blue sky, far away above you, giving you an idea of distance and immensity that you could never conceive in England, where the SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. clouds always look as if they would knock your hat off. I should have said the sky will be blue by-and-by, for at present it is too dark to see, and we are carefully tucked away in bed ; the' im- pedimenta of the coming journey— cold meats, flasks of shooting powder, and jumping powder ;' bread, guns, and a huge string of unsavoury onions—all on the floor beside us. Ding, ding, ding! as if the door-bell were in a fit, then^'a crasli and silence. No one ever rang a door-bell as a Russian droshky-driver rings it. He likes the muscular exertion, he loves the noise, and doesn't in the least mind being sworn at if, as in the present instance, he breaks the bell-wire. A -^ear in Russia has hardened us to all this, so merely speculating as to whether our landlord wHl pay more for broken bell-wires this half than last, we bundle out of bed and submit meekly to the re- proaches of our friends outside on the cart. They poor fellows, have had half an hour's less sleep than we have, and it's only 4 a.m. now, so any little hastiness of speech may be forgiven them. But on such a morning as this, and on such a conveyance as our droshky, no one could remain sleepy or sulky long. The brisk bright air makes the blood race through your veins, and the terrible bumpings of the droshky on the uneven track, or half- paved streets, keep you fully employed in strivino- to avoid a spill or a fractured limb. Anything B 2 SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. more frightful to a novice in Russia than the drosliky I cannot conceive. This instrument of torture is a combination of untrimmed logs and ropes and wheels, vf'\X\\ cruelly insinuating iron bands, merciless knots, and ubiquitous splinters. Manage your seat how you will, you are bound to keep bumping up and down, and at each descent you land on something more painful than that you have encountered before. In spite of all this, as the droshky leaves the town, the old German jager breaks out into a hunting ditty, and, truth to tell, until the wind is fairly jogged out of us we are a very noisy party. Then we try to light cur cigarettes and pipes, and if we are lucky, only have the hot ashes jerked on to our next neighbour's knee. Gradually the dawning light increases, the clouds of pearly grey are reddening, and the long undulating swell of the steppeland slowly unf Ids itself around us. On our left are the Straits of Kertch, the sea looking still and hazy, with some half-dozen English steamers lording it amongst the mosquito fleet of fruiterers and lighters which fills the bay. All round us are chains of those small hills, whose dome-like tops proclaim them tumuli of kings and chiefs who went to rest ages ago, when the town behind us was still a mighty city, rejoicing in the name of Panticapasum. Once clear of the ranges of tumuli or kour- SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. gans, as they call them here, there is nothing hut steppe. On all points, except the seaside of the view, a treeless prairie; no hills, no houses, scarcely even a bush to break the monotony of bare or weed-grown waste. On tlie right of the post-road by which we are travelling (a mere beaten track and really no road at all) run the lines of the Indo-European Telegraph Company, their neat sHm posts of iron contrasting not unfavouralilv with the crooked, misshapen posts which support the Russian lines on our left. Unimportant as these might appear elsewhere, they are important objects here, where they are the only landmarks to man, and the only substitute for trees to the fowl of the air. All along the road on either side of us the wires are now becoming lined with kestrels, just up evidently, and looking as though they were giving themselves a shake, and rubbing their eyes preparatory to a day's sport amongst the beetles and field-mice that swarm on the steppe. The number of kestrels round Kertch is somethino- astonishmg, and I almost think that with the other hawks, the blue hen harrier, kites and crows, tliey would almost outnumber the sparrows of the town. Now, too, our lovely summer visitants, the golden- throated bee-eaters, begin to shoot and poise swallow-like over the heads of the tall yellow hollyhock growing in wild profusion over the I SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. plain ; hoopoes, with broad crests erect, peck and strut bantam-like by the roadside, while every now and again the magnificent azure wings of the 'roller' glitter in the morning sun among the flowers. The 'bleak steppeland' is what you always hear of, and shudder as you hear, dread Siberian visions being conjured up at the mere name. But who that has seen the stepjjes in the later days of spring, or in the glow of midsummer, would apply such an epithet to lands that in their season are as richly clad in flowers as any prairie of the West ? Long strips of wild tulip. Nature's cloth of gold, blue cornflower, crow's-foot and bird's-eye, the canary- coloured hollyhock and crimson wild pea, all vie in compensating the steppeland for her chill snow-shroud in the months that are gone and to come. Rich as the land is, the crops by the roadside are few and paltry, the chief being rye, maize, millet, and sunflowers. The sunflowers are culti- vated for their seed, which is either used for making oil, or more generally is sold in a dry state as ' cernitchkies.' ' Cernitchkies ' furnish the Malo Euss, male and female, with one of their most favourite means of wasting time. Go where you will, ai; any time, in Kertcli, you will find people cracking these sunflower seeds, and trying to make two bites of the kernel. At every street corner you find a stall where they are sold, and SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. you rarely come in witlicut finding one of the little grey shards clinging to your dress, spat upon you by some careless passer-by, or sent adrift from some balcony overhead. Beside these crops, you come across long strips of water melons, the principal food of the Malo Kuss in the summer, and one of the chief sources of the Asiatic cholera sometimes so prevalent here. But for the most part the land is untilled left to its ^vild-flowers and weeds. The peasant of the Crimea makes but a sorry agriculturist. The Malo Russ is a lazy, good- natured ne'er-do-weel ; his days being more than half 'prasniks' (saints' days), he devotes the holy half to getting drunk on vodka, the other half to recovering from the effects of the day before. One day you may see him in long boots and a red shirt, with his arms round another l)ig-bearded moujik's neck in the drinking den, or husband and wife, on the broad of their backs, dead drunk, on the highway. The day after you'll find him in a moralizing mood, seated on his doorstep, smoking the eternal papiros, or nibbling sunflower seeds. Russians have told me that there are more holy days than calendar days in the year. To be holy a day need not be a saint's day— a birthday in the Emperor's family is quite enough to make a 'prasnik.' Of the actu;,l Church fetes there are 128. 8 SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. A The best agriculturists here are the German colonists, whose neat homesteads remind one for the moment of lands nearer home. Even the Tartars are better than the Malo Russ, but they have lately been leaving the Crimea in large numbers to escape the compulsory military service which Russia seeks to impose upon them. Every- where the army seems to be the worst enemy of the State. At last our ride comes to an end, and there is a general stretching of limbs and buckling on of shot-belts and powder-flasks, for with many muzzle- loaders are still the fashion here. The place at which we have stopped is the ' Starrie Metchat,' or old church, a Tartar ruin near a well, embosomed in rosemary- covered hills. Near this well we pitch our tents, and then we each go off on a beat of our own. Here there is room enough for all, and as some excellent Russian sportsmen have a careless way of shooting through their friends' legs at a boltmg hare, perhaps solitude has its peculiar advantages. As you brciist the first hill the sweet-scented covert comes nearly up to your waist, and right and left of you huge grasshoppers jump away or into your face with a vicious snap that is at first enough to upset the best regulated nerves. But see, your dog is pointing, and as you near him a large covey of grey birds, larger than our grouse, get up with whistling wings, and with smooth SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. undulating flight skim round the corner of the next hill. You get one long shot and bag your bird perhaps. The dog moves uncertamly forward, and then stands again. Go up to liim ; wherever strepita (lesser bustard) have been you are sure to find a hare or two close by. Time after time have I found this, although I cannot account for the fact in any way. The hares here are larger than our English hares, and in winter turn almost white, the skins in autumn having sometimes most beautiful shades of silver and rose upon them. The largest hare I ever remember to have seen weighed nearly thirteen pounds — it was an old buck — while in England a hare of eight pounds is exceptionally large. The dogs used in the Crimea for coursing are called Tscherkess greyhounds ; they stand con- siderably higher at the shoulder than our own dogs, are broken-haired, with a much longer coat than our staghound, and a feathered stern. I am told that on the flat the English greyhound beats them for a short distance ; but that in the hills, or with a strong old hare well on her legs before them, the Crimean dogs have it all their own way. I never had the good fortune to see the two breeds tried together. In fact, what cours- ing I did see was utterly spoilt by the Russian habit of cutting off the hare, and shooting her under the dog's nose. This is, of course, utterly ITT^' \iv lo SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. alien to our notions of sport — but so arc most of tlieir sporting habits. They never shoot flying if they can get a chance sitting. Jiears and boars and such hirge game they shoot from phitforms in trees at night ; and I never saw a horse jump in all my three years in Southern Russia. Of course, what applies to the Crimea and the Caucasus may not apply to other parts of Russia. As long as we keep in the rosemary, hares, quails, and strepita are all we are likely to meet with, except that in the valley and on the less sunny hillsides the dogs ever and anon flush large owls, that sail away hardly as bewildered as they are generally supposed to be by the sunlight. Overhead kites and harriers swim about in the clear sky, keeping a keen look-out for winged quails or wounded hares. But as we get to the top of the next rising ground we see in the plain far away at our feet a long line of ^vliat might well be grey -coated infantry. A closer inspection, or a previous acquaintance with the objects before us, will enable us to make them out to be bustards feeding line upon line in a flock — or herd, to speak correctly — of several hundreds. Most of them are busy with their heads on the ground, gleaning what they can from an old maize field ; but here and there, at a slight distance from the rest, stands a sentry that the most wary stalker cannot baftie, or the most alluring grain tempt from his ceaseless watch. SPORT /A THE CRIMEA. II Knowing that we are already seen, and being perfectly well aware that by ordinary stalking on these open plains we could never get nearer than three hundred yards from the herd before the old sentinel sets them all in motion with his shrill call, we retrace our steps, and get our comrades together. Then the horses are put to, and all with our guns in readiness we drive towards the point at which the bustards were seen. When within sight of them we make arrangements among ourselves, and then the drosky is driven quietly past the bustards some five hundred yards from them. All their heads are up, and the whole of the herd of two hundred is watching us intently ; but they know something of the range of a gun, and feel safe enough to stay yet awhile. Watch hard as you may, grey birds, you didn't notice that one of the occupants of the droshky has just rolled off, gun in hand, and is now lying flat buried in a deliciously fragrant bed of rosemary. One by one, as the droshky circles round the watchfn^ ^irds, the occu- pants drop off and lie still, until at last we have p cordon of sportsmen drawn right round the herd, and only the yemstchik remains on the droshky. Slowly, so as not to frighten them, he narrows his circle, while each hidden gunner keeps his eye anxiously on his movements. At last, having stretched their necks to the very utmost limit and twisted them into gyrations that 1' 12 SPOILT IN THE CRIMEA. would surprise a corkscrew, the bustards think they have had enougli of it, and tlicre is a slow flai)pin<^ of wings, and hoisting of the lieavy bodies into air. Slowly, with a grand solemn flight, wonderfully in keeping with the wild majesty of the boundless plains on which they live, they sail away towards the hills. Suddenly the leaders stop with a jerk, and try too late to change their direction. From the covert beneath the sportsman starts to his feet, two bright flashes are seen, two reports follow, one huge bird collapses at once and another lowers for a moment, and then goes feebly on to fall at the first discharge of the next hidden gun. Right and left the remainder fly, rising somewhat as they do so, but still not high enough to take them out of danger, and when at last they have passed the fatal circle, five fine birds reward our stratagem. One of us has to face a storm of chaff" hard for a disappointed sportsman to bear, for in his excite- ment he had neglected to change his cartridges ; and although standing within short pistol-shot of a passing monster, the quail -shot produces nothing more than a shower of feathers, enough almost to stuff" a bolster with. By thus surrounding them, and by shooting them occasionally from a cart, a few of these mag- nificent birds (larger than a turkey and finer eat- ing) are killed from time to time throughout sum- mer and autumn. A few too are sometimes picked SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. «3 up by the gunner in the early summer wliilst Rtill young, as they hide separately or in small coveys in tlie deep undergrowth. But the only time when any quantity are exposed in the bazaar for sale is in the depths of winter. Then when a snowstorm has caught the birds hiding in the valleys, and clogged their wings with snow, which a bitter wind still more surely binds about them, these poor denizens of the desert are surrounded and driven like a flock of sheep into the Tartar villages, where they are butchered, and thence sent in cartloads into Kertch, to be sold at a rouble and a half (3.9. G^/.) apiece. After slaying the bustards, having done enough for gloi'y, we have time V remember a thirst that would empty a samovar and an appetite that would astonish a negro. Gladly we hurry back to our little tent in a cleft at the foot of the hills, and while one unpacks the cold meats, dried sturgeon and caviare, another gets water for that tea without which our repast would be poor indeed to a Rus- sian. Being born and bred Englishmen, two of us might well have been expected to prefer our native beer to tea, but it is wonderful how fond men get of the delicious tea brewed in Russia, with its slip of lemon in it to add piquancy to the flavour. For my own part, after really severe exertion I am most thoroughly convinced it is by far the best restora- tive you can take, and one which I should prefer to any otl^er liquid whatever. Try as you will you i !■ H SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. can neither get nor make such tea in England, and once away from Russia, you must be content to leave the blessings of tea, ' swejie ikra ' (fresh caviare), and the soothing papiros (cigarette) behind you ; for numerous as tobacconists are in England, I know none where really good cigarette tobacco can be bought, such as you smoke in the Crimea. Meanwhile, as we are still here, let us lie on our backs and enjoy the delicious weed, watching the yemstchik arrange that wonderful puzzle of old cord which constitutes the harness of a troika. At last the horses are ready, and depositing ourselves and game on the jolting vehicle, we let our legs swing over the side, and if used to the motion manage to get a great deal of pleasure out of the drive home. As the evening closes in over these wild waste lands, a stillness and peace seem to come with it of which one has no knowledge in the towns. The piping of the quails, the long soft wail of the coolik (curlew), and even the notes of the German hunting horn on the other droshky far in front, all seem to make fitting music for the hour and scene ; and as the stars begin to shine out from a sky of infinite denth and metallic blueness, the oojai domoi (home already) is spoken not without an accent of regret, though limbs are tired and steppe roads rough. CRASNOI LAIS. 15 CHAPTER II. CRASNOI LAIS. A frozen sea— Swarms of wild-fowl— The Indo-European telegraph- Sledging on the 4zov— A desolate scene— Taman— Journey in- land — Tumeruk - TIotels-A dangerous sleep— Foxes— Wolves —A liasty retreat— Ekaterinodar— Supper in the forest of (.'rasnoi Lais— An exciting nights sport— Driving the forest — Cossack beatcrs-Wild deer— Other game— The bag-Rations of vodka— A Cossack orgy -Vulpine sagacity —Wolf stories-Return to Kertch. It was in February of 1876 that I first made acquaintance with the Caucasus. Once or twice before then it is true that I had crossed over to Taman and had a day's pheasant- shooting on the reedy shores of the Kuban. As we poled our flat- bottomed boat along its sluggish waters, I had a glimpse every now and again of the track of boar or cazeole (roe), that made me long for a chance of a longer stay on its banks. But it was not until the February of 1876 that my wish was granted. For weeks we had had all business stopped by the frost. The whole of the Azov was frozen as hard as the high-road, and it was only beyond the forts and well into the Black Sea that any open water could be found. Here the wild-fowl swarmed. i I !') i6 CRASNOI LAIS. Along the edge of the ice, where the open water began, lines of cormorants stood solemn and patient, fringing the ice with a black border of upright forms for miles. Beyond these in the open water were myriads of crested duck (anas fuligula), golden-eye pochards, scaups, and whistlers. Here and there in bevies, with hoods extended, the great grebes sailed about, while great northern divers and rosy-breasted mergansers all added their quota to the beauty of the scene. More beautiful than all others, groups of smews, with their plumage of delicately pencilled snow, ducked and curtsied on the swelling wave, while overhead the pintail whistled by, the large fish-hawks poised in air, and the gulls laughed and chattered perpetually. For the last few weeks most of my time had been spent among the wil^^-fowl or skating with the fair ladies of Kertch on the rink by the jetty. But one fine morning the lines of the Indo-Euro- pean Telegraph Company between Taman and Ekaterinodar were good enough to break down, and my friend the chief of the Kertch station was ordered to make an inspection of them along their whole length from one point to another. It seemed to him a long and wearisome journey to make by himself, so that Uke a good man and considerate, he asked me to share his sledge with him. Always glad to give me a chance of enjoying myself in my own way, my kind old chief readily agreed to the CRASNOI LAIS. 17 .iiTanfi^eineiit, and within an lioin* from the time wlien K. first proposed tlie trip, li(> and I were hard at work in the bazaar purchasing stores for the joarney. There is of course a post-road from Taman to Ekaterinodar, but badly indeed will those fare who trust to the resources of a Russian post station for their bodily comfort. This we well knew, and in consequence a large stock of German sausages, caviare, vodki, and other portable eatables and drinkables were stowed away in the body o^ our sledge. For many days previous to the time of which I wi'ite, the over-sea route from Yenikale to Taman had been open to carts and sledges, while vans, laden with com, had been continually cross- ing with only an aggregate of two accidents in the last four days. It was then with but few mis- givings that we embarked in our sledge with a really good 'troika' (team of three) in front, coached by the noisiest rascal of a yemstchik that ever swore at horses. Our road for the first twenty-two versts lay over the bosom of the Azov, and as we passed through regular streets of mos- quito shipping, and now and then under the hull of some big steamer caught in the ice, the sensa- tion was strangely novel. For the first ten versts the road was good, the pace exhilarating, and buried in our warm rugs we hugged to ourselves the con- viction that we were in for a really good thing. '^ ! I', i'l I i gill i8 CRASNOI LAIS. After this, however, we got to piled and broken ice, where the accidents of the last four days had occurred, and where our driver averred a current existed. Here my friend got nervous, and insisted on walking at a fair distance from the sledge, which proceeded meanwhile at a foot's pace. This in the increasing frost mist was not so cheerful, but the current was soon cleared, and in another half hour we landed safe and sound at that miserable little town of Taman. The only living tilings we had passed on our way were several wretclied assemblies of pale-look- ing gulls, literally frozen out, poor fellows, and a few huge eagles, squatting on the ice, their plumes all ruffled uj^, suffering probably as much from a surfeit of wounded ducks as from cold. The whole scene as we crossed was as desolate as the mind can well imagine ; Kertch behind us, white Avitli snow, clusteriniii; round the hill of Mithridates, a mere skeleton of her former glory in the days of Greek and Persian ; Taman, once too a prosperous city, now a few hovels buried in a snowdrift ; Yenikale perhaps more dead than either ; and all round the long low hills, the rounded tumuli of dead kings ; tlie tall bare masts of the belated ships ; a frozen sea beneath and a freezing sky above. Once in Taman we gave our driver a good tip ( ' na tchai ' ) for the tea as they call it, and betook ourselves to a friend's house for a few minutes' rest CRASNOr LAfS. 19 broken ays had current insisted i, which LS in the but the alf hour 3le little on our Je-look- s, and a ' plumes 1 from a le whole lind can h snow, a mere f Greek >us city, !^enikale iind the kings; % frozen ood tip betook tes' rest before our next start. Why a yemstchik's fee, which is invariably spent in nips of vodka (unsweetened gin) should be called tea- money, has always ap- peared to iMo an nuansweralile enignui. 'rninan hardly deserves a description, even from soluuuble a pen as mine. It has a jetty and a telegrai)h station ; is the post from which a few cattle are shipped to Kertch, and to which a few travellers to the Caucasus come from the same place. Once it was a large and flourishing city, twin sister to Panticapoium (Kertch) on the other side of the straits ; now it is a collection of miserable hovels, surrounded by nnid knee-deep in winter and storms of dust in summer, with an odour of fish and the vodka shop in all seasons. There are near to Taman some large oil- works, from which naphtha is said to be extracted in large quantities. It may be so, but I hear that their original owner is bank- rupt, and he was a Russian ; so tliut as the present proprietors are Americans, and as such less likely to be able to protect themselves from local frauds, I should not feel inclined to invest my bottom dollar in the Taman Oil Company. Such a wretched place did we find Taman, that we were glad to leave it and commence our journey inland at once. In describing a journey the traveller as a rule looks to the scenery to supply at least a very large portion of his description ; what then shall the luckless traveller do, who has c 2 li 1 ; 20 CRASNOr LAIS. literally 110 scenery to describe? The I'oad is u beiiteii track by the telegraph posts, with, every sixteen or twenty versts, a white house with a straw yard and some sheds at the back, and a black and white post with a bell rool'ed in on the top of it in the front. This is the post station. The country surrounding it is apparently waste, and, except for a few flocks of sheep, an old hooded crow or two, and maybe a bustard, quite un- tenanted by living things. Always the snow beneath and the jingling bells in front, and this with no incident to rouse one, naturally ends in sleep. Towards evening we came in sight of a larger group of buildings than any we had hitherto seen, nnd this we found was Tumeruk, our resting-place for the night. As far as we could see it was a larger town than Taman, w^itli the inevitable gi'een- domed church, a good spacious bazaar, barracks I think, and a neat little club-house. We were told that Tumeruk derived its wealth from the stur- geon fishery carried on to a very great extent in its neighbourhood. We were also told there were two good hotels in the place, and set off in high spirits to search for them, a comfortable bed to follow a good supper of sturgeon and caviare being things as welcome as they were unexpected. We searched diligently and found the first hotel, a moujik's drinking den or ' cabak.' There was a table with a man under it, and many more nearly ready to lRASNOI LAIS. 21 road is a ith, every til a straw )lack and 16 top of on. Tlie Lste, and, 1 hooded [uite un- lie snow and this sin sleep. E" a larger rto seen, ing-place it was a le gi'een- irracks I ^ere told he stur- mt in its vere two h spirits follow a hings as searched tnoujik's ble with eady to follow his peaceful example, but no beds and no supper. At last we found the grand hotel, a gaunt white house near the bazaar. With doubting hearts (for the place looked deserted) Ave beat at the little door, but got no response. After nearly ten minutes spent in mutilating our knuckles and damaging the door, a fellow in shirt and slippers turned up, looking as astonished as his besotted face would allow him to. The ' cazain ' (master) was away, he said, and spite of his boasting anent the capabilities of his house, we soon found there was no food in it but black bread — no servant but himself. But he managed to find us a room in fair repair, with a couple of the usual wooden bed- steads in it, and this we took. To our horror we found the stoves had not been lighted for a month, and were out of order, so that the cold indoors was greater than that without. Still it was too late to seek a lodging elsewhere, so we had some of our own stores cooked, a dram of Tumeruk vodka from the cabak, a small charcoal stove put in the middle of the room, and then rolling ourselves in every fragment of clothing we could find, and almost regretting that we had ever left our com- fortable quarters in Kertch, we proceeded to reap the reward of our long drive in a deep and dream- less sleep. Towards morning I half awoke with an idea that the house was attacked, so violent was the noise 'V 1 1 1 I t i, ; 1 I ll ' • I i ■ 1 ■ 1 ' 1 ; 1 • il f . 1 '1' I ■ 1 ' i i I 22 CRASNOI LAIS. tluit aroused me, and at once j uuiped up to see what was happening. But the moment I was out of bed a strange giddiness seized me, and turning round I fell, and remember no more until I found a friendly telegraphist endeavouring to rouse me with libations of cold water freely applied. Gra- dually I came round, but with such an intense headache and utter inability to use my own limbs, that I had rather have remained insensible. I was utterly unable to help in rousing my poor friend K., and as my senses came back to me 1 became seriously alarmed lest our morning callers should have been too late to save hiui. The truth was, something was wrong with the charcoal stove. Every aperture through which ventilation could be effected had, Russian fashion, been hermetically sealed for tlie winter, and my friend and 1 had had the narrowest escape from aspiiyxiation possible. After imuM'nse efforts we brought him round, but in spite of the bracing cold and the rapid driving, we both suffered from racking headaches and extreme lassitude for the rest of tlie day. The travelling during tiiis second day was of a more interesting nature; the country being covered in many places for miles with jungles of a tall reed called ' kamish,' in which i)heasants are said to abound, and boars and roe to occur not infre- fpiently. After getting out of the reedy land we Cl^ASNOr LAIS. caiuc to a tract of another nature, bare and rock- strewn ; and here, witliin lialf a mile of tlie station at which we slei)t, I was snrprised to see numbers of foxes hunting about in tlie snow for food. 1 should think that at one tiine a score must have been in sight simultaneously. As soon as we had taken in our rugs and ordered tlie samovar, I took my rifle, as it was not yet dusk, luid tried to stalk one of these little red rovers, without the least compunction, as foxhounds are probably a blessing of civilisation with which these barren lands will never be acquainted. But though I stalked a good deal and shot once or twice, I did no go(jd until J got to a frozen lake, some three-quarters of a mile from the station. Here I wounded a fox and fol- lowed him for some distance over the ice, and in domg so came across the remains of some large animal lately torn to pieces by brutes of prey. Having given up my fox, I was? meditating what maimer of beasts these might be, when my answer came in a long, weird howl. No need to tell any one what that sound is. Instinct teaches every man to recognise the wolfs howl, and once heard it is not easily forgotten. The first howl was followed by another aud another, and though I have no wish to pose as a coward, 1 frankly admit I wished I was anywhere l)ut three-quarters of a mile from a house, and all the distance two feet deep in snow, which would not bear my Vveight I.l ' < u CRASNOI LAIS. :.\\ on tlie surface. The wind, luckily, was from them to me, so that, though I walked back at my best pace, j)lunging frantically into deep drifts every few yards, from which 1 was spurred on by ever- recurring wolf music, I saw nothing, thongli I heard a good deal of my grim serenaders. It was a retreat, I admit, undignified, if you will ; but if the wind had been in another qujutcr it miglit have been worse. Over our tea that night the station-master spun many a long yarn of tlie doings of the wolves, highly coloured perhaps, but true in part, I believe. Next morning tlieir tracks were numerous by the post-road, and they must evi- dently have been about in some force. After another day's journey, passing through a few Cossack villages, with their green-domed churches and walled enclosures, w^e at last came in siglit of our journey's end, Ekaterinodar. This is the first town of any size on this side the Cau- casus, and at first siglit even this is more forest than town. The trees have just been sufficiently removed to make room for the houses, but wher- ever no house actually stands the forest has not been mterfered with. The effect was extremely pretty, now that the snow had loaded every tree with its wdiite plumes and given the streets a hard white covering ; but in summer, when the acacias (which predominate here) are in blossom, Ekateri- nodar must be as lovely as it is malarious. In CRASNOI LAIS. 25 summer and early autumn fever raj^es here, and even now every man and woman that wc pass in tlic streets has a yellow wizen face that tells of the rava«j^es of this Asiatic (;urse. Here at last everything is genuinely Asiatic except the build- ings. The grotesque combinations of top liat and lonjr boots are not seen here. The denizens of the streets are tall Cossacks with high sheepskin hats, with a crown all scarlet cloth and gold braid ; short broad-shouldered Tartars, in loose blue gar- ments, belted at the waist with bright-coloured shawls ; women in short petticoats and high boots with basliliks over their heads. The shops are most of them open magazines, with no glass front, but instead an awning in front of them, and inside a broad counter, on which the proprietor sits cross-legged with cigarette or long pipe in mouth. The wares for sale consist chiefly of pelts brought in by the Tscherkesses from the neighbourhood; and here, in the examination of them, my friend and I spent no small time, as a great deal of the natural history of the country may be gleaned from these middlemen, and many a good guide and hunter be secured from among their clients. I shall pass over the two days we spent here as shortly as possible. My friend had his work to do, and my own time was filled up by chatting with the officers who frequented the hotel at which we were staying. It was whilst thus i« 26 C HAS NO I LAIS. eii^jigejiying, guns firing, nnd lijircs scuttling to tho riglit Jind l(ift of yon, wliilo tln'ougli jill, with a Ijeiiiitiful pertinacity which hardly allowed him time to fire a shot, the veteran forester tootled away on his horn. This would have augured badly for our sport on the morrow but that the forest was immense, and we were only in an out- lying bit of it, from which we probably drove some game towards our next day's ground. Although the snow Avas covered with tracks, we saw nothing but hares, of which we bagged about twenty. T^ -' lorning of Thursday broke as brilliantly as its }; lecessors, and the sun seemed if possible to glare with a harder light on the frozen snow. Outside our door the forester was apparently on the point of knocking down three or four Cossacks almost as excited as himself. His voice rose to a scream, his arms kept swinging about; even I knew enough Russian to hear that he was swear- ing awfully, and I had my fears lest something had happened to mar our day's sport. However, he finally calmed down, and presently I heard him call- ing a huge-bearded rufiian a little dove (golubchik), whom he had addressed as the son of the most immoral of the canine race not five minutes before. He was merely explaining some of the minor details in the business of the coming day, he told me afterwards. About 7.30 a Cossack colonel, with a hundred in CRASNOI LAIS. 33 ve some of his men, turned up. Tliis was the local Nimrod, and these the beaters he brought with him ; and a wilder lot to look at, a more thirsty lot to re- fresh, a noisier, more froUcsome lot altogether, you could not find even at Donnybrook fair. With the colonel came another Russian and a couple of young Frenchmen, and this made up our party. A huge sledge was in attendance for the sports- men, and another for the game. The beaters were sent on, and some of the more reliable entrusted with a third sledge laden with eatables and a cask of goodly dimensions. As the last Cossack dis- appeared down the forest drive, we turned back into the cottage, lighted our cigarettes, and having collected our ammunition, took our places on the sledge waiting for us, and drove merrily to the meet. On our way the overhanging branches caught us now and again, sweeping one of our number into the snow, amid peals of laughter from all but the victim. Arrived at the rendezvous, strict silence was enjoined, the guns were posted, each a hundred yards or so fi-om the other, along one side of the division, with orders on no account to leave those posts until told to do so. Meanwhile the Cossack colonel had taken his hundred men to the opposite side of the section, and all being in readiness, we heard his horn signal ' forward,' and then all was silent as the grave. Every eye was strained on ^^ II ii ! '■ . 1^ lliilii !! 1 ,,in ^ 34 CKASNOI LAIS. the l)uslios iind thick covert in front, every car intently listening for tlic patter of feet or the sonnd of breaking brushwood. l»iit as yet no sound : (iven \\\(\ (^)ssucks were too distant to \m\ heard as yet. Did some one move along the line ? No, every soul is still as we are. Again the crash ; the sound that set our hearts beatinff a few ni«;hts ago, but now far less startling in the daylight than it was then in the shadows and stillness of night. lien* they com (^ trooping towards our line, fonr do(^s and a tall stag in front, half trotting, half walking, tossing their dainty heads up and down as they approach. They advance straight to- wards the oak at which I saw my German friend j)osted, and 1 reluctantly hold my hand that he may make the best of his chance. Nearer and nearer they come, and yet no shot breaks the still- ness, thougli they are almost past him. Suddenly they throw np their heads, and witli a rush are lost in the forest beyond, without a shot having been (ired at them. My frien; for some live minutes, nntil in tlie open hetwec^n two <^ivat oaks a fine red fox eame trottini;' stealthily towards us, his hroad heavy hrush spread, aiul seemini»* to trail on tlu^ snow behind him, whieh threw his whoK^ i^raeeful, un- dulatin«»' form out in bold relief it seemed ai»ain,st one's Eiifdish natnre to shoot him, but it had to b(^ d(me, and a, cluir|L»'e of heavy shot rolled him over y this time the cries of the beaters had drawn very near, some of their forms even showinij^ from time to time in open phices. Three (jnick springs and an abrupt pause in the bushes in front of me now arrested my attention, but thinkin<»' after a time that it was only another hare, I siiiijfled out one of these long-eared gentry, and rolled him over. 7V s I did so two roebucks broke covert, and galloped rapidly past our Ivussian Iriend on the left, who, making a neat right and left, laid them both on the path. This was the sliot (jf the dtiy. A bugle now sounded a warning to turn our backs to the D 2 ■OTHI 36 CRASNOT LAIS. beators an i I iiii It! I' ni 1:1 mill ^jii 44 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 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-shoot- mg 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. Stanloy, 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 thein 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 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 45 the while the yeinstchik laiigliing and swearing, jnid not minding one bit. Two of his crimson velvet cushions dropped off into darkness behind him, and this probably sobered him. At last we o-ot 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 wsis unusually moderate in his oaths at the accident, and passed on quickly and disappeared. We dis- covered afterwards that a valuable piece of the Iiarness 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 tliin post ])assing between our off leader and th shaft horse, cut clean through every atom of harnch-, and set the young one free. For a moment he stood dunned 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 tlic remaining two horses. The fellow was liu ivy enough to recover his horse next day, but not i [■' I 'i|: I' ■ i'.,„,- " I li 46 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. without considerable trouble and expense. I be- lieve he tind 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 PrLnce Yorontzoff, 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 Yo- rontzoff many thanks for his ready kindness to a stranger, and repeat them with the same sincerity with which 1 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 niiigniticence, Russian luxury, and English comfort. In the distance it looks massive and glorious, with magnificent timber, gju'dens, and vineyards stretching down to the sea at its feet, the grey summit of Aie Petri towering over it from behind, and away to the rijiht the Bear Mountain, couched with his head on his paws, looking ever seaward. ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 47 Yalta itself is the Eden of Russia perhaps, but it is an Eden in which most of the inhabi- tants are invalids, all the hotels infamously exor- bitant in tlieir charges ; and life, unless one is addicted to tlie process of the grape cure, exces- sively monotonous. The palace of Livadia is beautiful, but would, I think, scarcely please ordinary English taste as nmch 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 in an 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 Mis- kitchee, the lake that ' best of all lakes the fowler loves,' on thtce Crimean steppes. Miskitchee is the Tartar name for a villasre some sixty versts fron Kertch : the lake, which adjoins the village, shares with the latter its name. The lake io 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 48 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. iilii!! 1' , for tlie 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 a;> T 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 sports- man, 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 ODESSA AND MISKITZHEE. 49 if I accepted tl»e lift I should li.ivc to pay a con- siderable fare, so I declined as graciously as pos- sible. My friend persisted, and at last I told him f ankly 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 night fall. He consented at once, so without more adf> I ffot 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 bao'sred several hares and a few quail. His siirht was the most marvellous I ever met with. Stand- ing 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 plouglied 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 undiscemible 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 m lip I,!' i i !;;■'! :■'. I"! Il lit ! I 50 ODESSA AND MISKJTCIIKE. struck, and we dismounted to choose our sheep. My friend plunp^ed in among them, and after regarding many with the eye of a profound connois- seur, chose f(3ur. 'IVj choose them was easy, to secure them seemed less so. Kicking off his shoes and roUing up his long loose sleeves, the purchaser tried to approach his purchase. The more he ad- vanced the more rapidly the sheep retired, trying in vain to lose himself amongst his comrades or sub- stitute 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 sheep- ish 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 w.ay, whenever I killed anything, my guide insisted on cutting its throat ODESSA AND MISKITCllEE. 51 and breaking its legs, a sni)erstitious 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 to]i of a low hovel in tlie middle of the straggling main street (if streets there are in Tartar 'aoids'), and shouted hhnself hoarse in the Tartar tongue. What he said I knew not then, but from subsequent events I believe it Avas to the effect that the good butcher, Lotso, had brought with him five fat sheep, all or any of Avhicli he was prepared then and there to convert into mutton, if sufficient customers were forth- coming. 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 i)erhaps the Tartar house- keepers 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 se- lected fi-om 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 tha.t it wa8 all a dozen Tartars could do, whirling their knouts round the E 2 52 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE, 1)iitdior US tlic whips do wlion tlio huntsman is lu'caking 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 (l)utcher's perquisites), thrown back into tlie cart, and after a drink of sour cream at the dirty brown liands 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 nnd sold, tlio 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 su^fmisted our return, when he coolly informed me that I had better make up my mind to pass the night at his house at J , namintf a villajije of some half-dozen houses, at which an exccr.'ible 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. Accor- dingly I reminded him of his promise. All the satisfaction T could i»et was that if I wanted to jro back I must walk. Did I know in which direction ]\Iiskitchee lay ? Yes, out yonder, over that low line of hills. A grim laugh, and the assurance that Miskitchee was in an exactly 0])posite direction, increased my suspicions of my quondam friend, as I jirll ODESSA ANJ) MISKI'ICHEE. 53 knew by ccrtuiii Ijiiuhiuirks tliut he lml^t W. lyiiii:,'. A nioUK'ut's foJisidt'i'utiuu showed iiie tluit u walk at this hour, even su|HH)sln^' 1 did not lose my way, woukl end probably m aniglit oji the step])e, at the mercy of this man (h* any other who ehose to stalk me, and surprise me in the dark or in my sleep, to say nothuig of the ahsolute necessity in case of my leaving the cart of abandoniniz; my game. So 1 changed my tactics. He had no firearms, and sat on the edge of the cart. 1 liad my gun, and sat behind in the body of it. Mustering what little iiussian 1 knew, I let him understand that I held him to his promise ; that I had heard of »! aneated my proposals, and sat still. Meanwhile the horses were pulled up. Then my friend tried to slip olf his seat, and so get out of his awkward position in front of my gun's muzzle. 1 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 1 never took my eyes off him, 'l ''i 1 ,111 1 i 1 54 ODESSA AAD AIJSK'ITCI/EK. 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 npoke to me, to assure me that further than that nothing would induce liim 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, thankfid to have got off so well. On my way back I thought 1 liad probably been over suspicious, and made a fool of myself. However, on my arrival, I found I had been seiu'ched for all day, and great anxiety had been felt for me. It sceuis juy butcher was of more professions than one, being indeed the most notorious liorse- stealer on these steppes. He had camped near the village the niglit before, and made several inquiries about me, having seen me returning from shooting that niglit. He had also expressed great admiration for my gun, a rather liandsome breech-loader. This, together vvitli the fact that the butcher, one of my host's best horses, and myself had all disappeared simultane- ously 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, 1 1)elieve, gone, and tlie whole ()/)/-:SSA Ai\'l) MISKITCIIKE. 55 villa<''<3 looked iiHlcep in the smisliiiuius wo pas^scd it hy: II 8tmgglin<( gr()U[) ot'oiic-storlud hovels, Nvitli tlie sunlight glinting on rows of* yellow gourds on the thatcli ; 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 njud of the main street and iiis (piarters on the somewhat drier mud of his dining-room floor, lounged, ciga- rette in mouth, a piuk-shirted I'nssian 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 oveu ; this would be the baboushka's (grandmother's) bed. A wooden bedstead Avith 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, fijjj-htinii' over the family loaf of black brend, from which they are in vain endeavouring to hannner 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 un- savoury as it is ugly. !l ,1 ill ^ i|i|Sij| ill 11 in; i: 'I iiiii I 56 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. Gludly, then, \ve left the villtige beliuid iis, and drawing \\\> onr droshkies under the lee of a high natural embankment beside the lake, prepared to pass the nigiit there. A hole v/as dug in the eartli and a subterranean fire nuide to cook over. Our bourkas stretched over tlu^ drosliky made a kind of refuge between the wheels, into which we could crawl and sleep in case of rain. These and other little preparations !;:? ving been at least ^ tarred, we beo-an our shootiii'''. Two yuns went round the lake, one on eitlier side ; one worthy sportsman might have been seen arraying himself m 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 tlirough the shallow lake for the reed beds in the centre ; here carefully concealed to rea}) the benefit of the stalking party on either shore. The fifth gunner, a tall thm German from Riga, tbr very best of good fellows, with the longest of legs, had taken to himself a larije bisciut-tin, the which he had deposited on a smrJl sand-biink 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 1>. awaited the dodgy duck. The men m tho reeds had the best of it, though ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 57 the shooting was hardest there, aiitl as we had no retrievers we never i^ot a quarter of the birds we killed. The isolated gentlemn'i on the bisciiit-tin tjot a few lon«jj shots, and as his birds all fell in open water, got most of what he killed. 13ut, alas, when he attempted to rise to gather his birds, he Avas 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 imadorned ' con- tributed some mallards, tetd, and a couple of pin- tail, with a few snipe ; and after counting out the bag, all drew round the tire to imbibe the cheering ' tehai ' (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 w^is 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 s« ODESSA AND MISKirCHlZE. ill 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 Gorman jiiger's ghost stories, culled from the forests of Germany and the plains of Asia, until ihr into the night. And never had a teller of weird legends fitter accompaniments than the nullion voices of the lake at our feet and the ceaseless peltmg and buffeting of the storm without. One more shot at the duck in the morning, and then we turned homewards. My time I felt w^as 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 escajie the Circassian fever w^hich is so prevalent in early autumn. THE RED FOREST AND BLACK SEA COAST. 59 CHAPTER IV. THE RED FOllEST 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 (Jzar — Cheap- ening supplies — A liussian 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 — ('aucasian 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 Kertcli for Eka- terinodar, intending to liave a week's sport at my okl (juarters in tlie Crasnoi Lais (lied Forest), having written to that effect to Colonel R., the forester, about a week before. My mipedimenta 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 Titlis across the little known Mooghan Step[)e to the Caspian. But it is hardly THE RED FOREST AND worth wliilu to mention my pluiis, us tlicy nearly all suffered change, ami it would have bueii better for me if they all had. At Taman, whilst the horses were being har- nessed, I was kindly entertained by the chief of the JIussian Telegraph station, from whom 1 gained a good deal of general information. I may say once for all, that Avherever I went I met with the kindest attention from the employes of the Telegraph Companies, whether Russian or Indo- European, and I heartily connnend to their kind- ness 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 some- what 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 m BLACK SEA COAST. 6? 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 fastenrs 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 '{-revhound. The best are black and alaiost 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, liad we to pull up whilst the driver wrung out the mud from one of these sw^eeping appendages, and tied it up into a less comely but more convenient bob. Without this the horses couhl not have done the distance at all. As for myself, I was speedily 62 THE RED FOREST AND sodden throuf^h, while my face wns like that of a plaster cast with its eyes bimii^ed up. It is a pitiful thing to see all this useful land untilled, and all the peasantry and the country itself so i)oor. My friend the Russian telegrjiph clerk told me a few more reasons besides the per- petual ' 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 him- self pretty much after this fashion : * In this par- ticular 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 oflF, 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 m(!n are, even if all were workers even in the English sense, far too small for the acreage, and you have some reasons for the BLACK SEA COAST. 63 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 cheer- ful, 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/. to 2/. 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 ; m summer black bread and arboose (water-melon) ; in winter black bread and cabbage soup, with a dry fish now and again as a honne houchc, 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 de- lights, 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 him- self told me that some men w^orking 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 RED FOREST AND tlie moujik's clothes arc as simple and inexpensive as his diet : in winter a toga of sheepskin, with the woolly side in, a scarf round his waist and sheep- skin hat on his head, a pair of long boots that cost him more than all the rest of his outfit, but are un- rivalled for their long wearing qualities ; in sum- mer a calico shirt ; and summer and winter you may see his wife and brats going about, in snow or sun- shine, with nothin«ic but a sinijle linen ffiirment 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 cjovernment under which she exists, and to which, in spite of the outcry of the few, the majo ty 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 suflVjr continually. Were there less com- pulsory military service, more religious training, BLACK- SEA CO AS 65 greater encoiirji;;ement given to agriculture, and more inducements held out to foreigners to settle in the waste places of Russia's vast empire, so that hy their example they might teach her own people how to make the best of tlie natural advantages they enjoy, there might then be a chance of hap- piness and prosperity for Russia and her people. There is in every Russian moujik an inlicrent love of the Czar, a personal loyalty to him, which deifies and renders its object infallil)le in the eyes of his subjects, and this takes much to oradicnte. 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 Tumeruk, 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. F 66 THE RED FOREST AND fin 1 1 i Ikr.'i (frosli caviare) wns nearly two sljillinj]js a pound, and frcsli butter tenpcncc. It is one of the unpleasant characteristics of the Russian tradesman that yon must always harjijain with him for the merest trifle. It is only fair to say for him that it is the fanlt rather of his customers than himself ; for in Kertch, where we w^ere known, the trades- men, knowing that the Knglish 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 acquain- * tance 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, w^ell built, and of a wondrous ' complexion, though they eat much meat and sweets ' and drink strong wine. Vet 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 BLACK SEA COAST. 67 * 11 nine of ski[)i>ers, inaeliinists, tutors, and f^ovcr- ' nesscs, al)ovc all governesses. That would be a ' ffrand mistake. Beautiful women don't leave Ensr- ' land for tliis. Beauty is ca[)ital. Women as a race 'are worth nothin<]f in England if they have not * some special talent. One foreign language or ac- *coin])lishment for children is no great thing, so it ' only remains to go to Russia. The greater ])art of '■ I^'uglishwomen are tall, well built, rather proud ' and calm ; according to many even cold. Tlie ' colour of their hair is of never-ending variety.' Such appears to be the judgment of one who evi- dently believed himself a connoisseur, and had had, moreover, an o[)portunity 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 ' sea-side 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 Avretched natives took refuge in the depths of the ' kamish ' jungles. Here they F 2 I I' 68 THE RED FOREST AND !i i ■ stjiy(!«l till iii^'litfiill, wlioii tlio inyrijuls of veno- iiioiiH mosquitoes, which make their home amongst these reeds, drove them out, preferring death at tlie 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, 1 have little doubt of its truth. The cold is getting (piite severe already ; all the ([uail 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 ^vatcr, 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 cook- ing, though not first-rate, is the hotel's greatest attraction. Some one talks al)out man's heartiest welcome being at an inn. If he had ever tried a Russian inn, he would have reconsidered that state- ment. Most of the guests at the Uihlc-dliotc are niACK SEA COAST. U) orticers, from \vliu!li oiu! would iiilt!!* tluit ivglmentjil mt'ssc's are not in vogue in Unssiji. In the niorninjr ;if'ter my arrivnl jif Kkateri- nodar I was up betimes, and, witli a (Viend whose a'M|uaintance I had made on my first visit, pro- ceeded to tht! fair outside tlie town to pureliase the indispensable Iiourka. Thanks to his exertions, I was, in little more than an hour, the [)ossessor of a nood bourka, shevoskiii whouba an«l c;ip, all pur- chased for about I/. Attired in the costume of th(! country, and si)eaking the language fluently, if not well, I am less likely to attract the attention of the natives, who, T am told, being for the most part Mussulmen, arc bitterly set against the l^Jiglish just now, ascribing, as they do, the misfortunes of the Turkish Emph'e to our cold friendship, for which they have, I fear, a harder name. Ekaterinodar must be a prospering town, for 1 am told that seven years ago there were only five stone houses in the place, and now there are up- Avards of a thousand. Tlu; 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. 15ut now as the cart-tracks through the tow^n 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 '11 ! f ^fi •^ »i f illi. i:: THE RED FOREST AND help of cojiwtaiit prmiin^" uiid uprooting, the houses hegin to peep lews blmdly throiiii,h the trees, while a tolerably viii;oroiis town government prevents the dej)osit of filth in the public thoroughfares, the back of tlie fever lias been broken. The w<^nderfiil richness of the soil is sufficiently vsliown by a statement made to me by a settler here to-day: ' If J don't clear my garden three times a year from new growths, 1 should be unable to force a way through it at the sd\v\ of a twelvemonth.' It was in liis garden that I saw this afternoon some of the largest gonrds I evor set eyes on, some weighing over eighty poimds, while he assured me that they sometimes reached as much as 120 or 1s of vodka and other liqueurs were dispensed, for the most part by German Jews, to little crowds of half-drunk Cossacks. Close by, 'III" li :,:i BLACK SEA COAST. 7» through the open doorway of a tent, you (;iuii»ht tlie glare of a liuge fire and your uosti'ils a savoury fsujell of roasting nuitton. I'eeling liuugry, I en- tered at one of ^Iiese open doors, and found myself in a Ivahnuek refreshment booth, witli two or three dead sheep lianging round the tent-i)ole anii a hig semi -subterranean tire at the farther end. Here several wild-lookini»: Tartars were devillini*- little knobs of mutton on a skewer ; and purehasing two or three of these sken^ers, witli their savoury })urden on them all hissing from the coals, we made the best meal 1 have yet partaken of in tlie (^auea.sus. To wash this down we ordei'ed Kahnuck tea, evi- dently quite the tiling to drink liere. The tea is [)ressed in huge cake-like bricks, and is a])parently 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 lum[)s of butter, and i)epper and salt to tastcj, when it resem- bles soup a good deal mori; than tea. It was not initil 8 r.M. next day (rhursdiiy) that I managed to get my ' [)0(lorojna ' (travelling ticket) and other things in order. At that hour it was really too late to start on my hmg drive to the lied Forest, but 1 was so sick of delays lliat I determined to ;ome 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 luiother (Quarter of the forest a furious crashing, accompanied by short tierce snortings. Old R.'s little wiry figure actually stiffened with excitement, and his eyes became more prominent even than their wont, as he gri))ped my arm till it ached. ' Kabaii ! ' (boar) was all lie seemed able to get out, and, indeed, I was little less excited myself. Motioning to the Cerman to guard the corner of the (piartal where the rides crossed, he stole stealthily along a ri»le towards the sounds, stopping every now and then to listen, but never letting go my unfortunjite arm. The sound was close to us, and now even my untrained ears tohl me that the sound was niu<'h like that of pigs in deadly strife. All at once my ! p iN I hi! :'l 112 : ii k '■ i :|i|v:' 76 r/^iE /?i?/? FOREST AND vivacious little friend dropped my arm iind 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 snoi-tini:^, with the rendinn; 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 liirched forward, evidently hard hit ; but he instantly recovered and went on. I had a faint idea that some one was calling me back, telinig 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 nul^ic 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 nearlj' impenetrable thickets, I was on BLACK SEA COAST. 11 the point of jL^iving uji the chase when I lieard the dogs haying something not far ahead of me. 'Vo creep to within thirty yards or so of them did not take long, and then croncliing hehind the ])ole of a huge oak, I waited for niy eyes to get used to the darkness. Gradually I hegnn to make out the dogs' stems 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 maddeninc^. The doijs' clamour never ceased. The hoar kept half growl- ing, 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, T rolled him over with my ' express.' Rising he tried to cliarge, but though I fired again, I believe it was unneces- sary, as he was too hard hit ever to liave reached me ; still I had seen a man killed l)y a wounded boar, and I naturally preferred to keep this one at a distance. This was the first really large game T had killed, and I rushed up to him and gloated over him with all the al)andon of a boy. I have sairo])nbly; nnd ns T heju'd the tootle of my friend's born nupronch I sat myself down on a broad siraise. But, alas! what is this? As my friend approaches, slowly the t»ay smile fades, the ap- ])laudinij^ voice is still ; the horn drops from his nerveless i-rasp, and the merry little visage lcn«;'tbens out in a telescopic iashion truly awfid to behold. ' Moe domaschne kaban ! ' Those were the fatal w.' 1 had come some thousand miles to slay a beast which I mii«ht have found in any sty at home; 1 had accepted my friend's hos]>ita.lity, and rewarded it by slayin«»' bis one cherished pork(M'. How 1 smoothed binjdown 1 don't know, but I did it somehow. As for BLACK SEA COAST. 79 myself, I novcM* (juito rccovorod until I had slain a veritable wild boar lon^jj afterwards. Tiic faet was, this wretched animal had broken ont of his sty some months previously, and betaken himself to the forest to take his fdl of love, chestnuts, and other pleasant things. lie had apparently been makinu; too free with the lady friends of his blaek- wkinned brethren, and at the moment at which we arrived was doini*' battle witli two of them for his oflences. In the dark his own master had not recoujnised him, so that then; was ample excuse for me, and there was even a. i»'ood side to this misha]>, inasnnich as we wrre all '••cMino- very tired of roe-deer's llesh, anraij^i»in}'' him home with j->rt ■ a sapliu«»' ailixed to his snout, was the poorest part of the joke. Durinu; the next day I did not recover my spirits sufliciently to try for bii;* ♦•ame, so the (Jerman colonel and myself devoted it to [)heasant- shootini»'. The covert consists of thick r<'cd-beds, the birds arc; of th<> orii»inal stock from which our Kn,i;lish birds are derived, and in no way ditter from them in si/e or api>earance. We killed very few, my do<2j provin^i; utterly useless in thick covert, in conseipience of which I _i»av(; her away on the Hrst o|>portunity. I had n(» ri;j;'ht 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 8o THE RED FOREST AND open sliootin<^ for some time, \ tlionglit it bettia' to part with her. I am told tliat throughout the Kuban district, the tremendous frost of lS7fi, 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, T saw a few Avoodcock 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. ( )f 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 j^heasants. 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 II BLACK SEA COAST. tlie ground. My own assortioii tliat witli us tlu; 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 ap[)earcd 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 bois- terous manners of an English schoolboy, added to the peculiarities natural to a Russian. In about a \ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^ 1.0 I.I 118 III ^ m ^ 140 11:25 i 1.4 vQ /^ ^ ^> Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STRUT WEBStlR.N.Y. 14580 \716) 872-4503 iV iV %^ «- > <^ 6^ ^ 82 THE RED FOREST AND ten minutes lie luid ])ut me tln'ouf^^h tlie usual catecliism, to which time and experience had tauf^ht me to submit with the greatest placidity. Who was my father ? What was my trade ? Was I rich ? Married ? Why did I come here, i^'C. ? To all these questions I had regular stereo- typed 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 Eng- lishman I imagined little was meant by such an oif-]»and invitation us 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, BLACK SEA COAST. The (lays of preparation passed in Ekateriuodar 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 dei)arture 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 otticer ; and if I had little luggage, this Avorthy 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 j)iled 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 gToup 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 exceed- ingly merry time of it. Briskly our horses trotted G 2 JSd ,iBl 11 ; i^ i 1 84 THE RED FOREST AND niong in tlio keen morninjj^ air ; the roads were liard with frost, and as the heavy cart lurched from nit to rnt, 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 aerial flights in time to go on with the cart, but at what an ex- ])ensc 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, BLACK SEA COAST. «S the good intentions of the Government are too frequently frustrated. Never was I more heartily thankful than when we came to whst was (for us) the end of this exe- crable 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 ' aoiil ' (village) was fenced about with wattled wjills, and seemed a busy, thriving little i)lace, but as far as I could see contained none of ihose lovely women of whom one has heard so much in ' Lalhi Rookh' and elsewhere. And perhaps I mwy ])c permitted to say here that neither jit TiHis nor in Daghestan, nor elsewhere in the Caucasus, have I seen, either among the peasants or the u])pcr classes, one single face sufficiently beautiful to attract a second glance in London. 1 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 tlie aurochs, I never found it. I have brouglit back several photographs of typical Caucasiiui faces, bought at various photographers, who seem to me to have always chosen the Ijest-looking [)eople they could find, yet even so they are by no meaus strikingly beautiful. The men, if you will, are many of them magnificent, and as handsome as they are A^ell built ; but for the women, even those who have good features are so totally devoid III .: *J 86 THE RED EOREST AND ■m ol' expression, so extremely aiiiiiuil in tlieir aj)[)ear- nnee, ns to almost warrant the Turks' conclusion that they possess none hut ])}>ysical properties, and are as soulless as they are insi|)id. Moreover, they are most of them so wonderfully alike that cases of mistaken identity must he common, even with the most devoted hushands. P»y the way, Tscherkess and (-ossack are fre- ({uently used amongst the llussiaiis as terms of reproach, equivalent to robher .ind swashbuckler respectively, and no Circassian ever calls himself Tscherkess. Here at Enem T got tlie first insii»ht into my companions' ideas of travellini>\ We had perhaps been on the road a couple of hours, and had break- fasted as heartily as men can do, yet here we were doomed to repeat the process. And to save further reference to it 1 may say that our vast supply of stores was by no means unnecessary. Every tAvo 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 nnicli food cam}>aigning 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 vailcy between two gables, your feet thrust into things like a couple of fire- liLACK SEA COAST. 87 sliovds, with tlic corners of whicli yoti poke; 14) the ribs of your ItoHiiuiiitc if he is tired or slii;L!;;jfisli. Here, too, the I^^nj^Hsli e([uestri5iii meets witii ii novelty in tlie pace of liis liorse, which luis hisen tji!i<^ht to f^o 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 pro[)erly, and if they do, and you attempt to rise to the trot as men do in l^ng- land, 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 won- derful endurance, ])ut thiire is one breed ol' horses in the Caucasus that looks all over like makinu" into good hunters — I mean the Khabardine. They arc larger, finer, and faster animals than any others that I have ever seen in Russia, and their price is proportionately higher. A good Khabar- dine costs from 200 to 500 roubles. As wo journeyed on from l^^nem 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 \\(\\\\ almost as often in the water as out of it, and it is this small stream that when flooded sto[)s this road to the Black Sea for nearly half the year. A\e stayed for the night at some mineral springs about I ; I 88 THE RED FOREST AND !'■ :i forty versts from Kneiii, beautifully situated near tlie J*sccku])z, witli lii^li, well-timbered hills all round. Most of the trcjcs are youn<^ oaks, which were now lovely in their russet robes. But there are, besides, wild pear and apple, with everywhere a thick under«^r()wth of hazel. At the mineral sprin<^s is a Russian military hospital, and the doctor in char«^e was our host for the night. The hosj)ital is built to hold some HOD 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 si)rings themselves are of hot water, strongly impregnated with sulphur, which comes down from the hills at a temperatiu'c of 42"" IJeaumur. I saw some of the water, which was colder, of a dull bluish grey, and stank horribly. These baths are supposed to cure rheumatic atfec- ti