Chapter XVII
ORIGIN OF THE DON COSSACKS--MEANING OF THE NAME--THE KHIRGHIS COSSACKS--RACES ANTERIOR TO THE COSSACKS--SCLAVONIC EMIGRATIONS TOWARDS THE EAST.
The origin of the Don Cossacks has, like that of the Tatars of Southern Russia, given rise to interminable discussions. Some have represented this people as an offshoot of the great Sclavonic stock; others consider it as only a medley of Turks, Tatars, and Circassians. Vsevolojsky adopts the former of these opinions, in his Geographical and Historical Dictionary of the Russian Empire. M. Schnitzler boldly decides the question, in his Statistics of Russia, by declaring that the Cossacks of the Don have proceeded from the Caucasus, and belong for the most part to the Tcherkess or Circassian nation.
Constantino Porphyrogenitus, a writer of the ninth century, mentions a country called Kasachia. "On the other side of the Papagian country," he says, "is Kasachia, and immediately afterwards are discovered the tops of the Caucasus." The Russian chronicles likewise mention a Circassian people subjugated in 1021 by Prince Mstizlav, of Tmoutarakan. These, it must be owned, are very vague data, and the resemblance between two names is not warrant for our concluding that the Cossacks of our day and the Kasachians of the ninth century, are one and the same nation. Except the few words we have just cited, we have no other information respecting the latter people, and all the historical researches hitherto made, have failed to determine the real situation of Tmoutarakan. This town has been placed sometimes at Riazan, sometimes at the mouth of the Volga, on the site of Astrakhan, sometimes on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. A stone, with a Sclavonic inscription, discovered at Taman, seemed for a while to have solved the problem. But it was afterwards fully demonstrated, that this grand historical discovery was only a hoax practised on the credulous antiquarians.
The Kasachia of the ninth century is thus but very imperfectly known to us; even with the help of Constantino Porphyrogenitus, it would be difficult to determine its position with any real precision; and when the Cossacks, now known to us, appear for the first time, 600 years afterwards, it would be rash and arbitrary in the extreme to declare them the descendants of a people so briefly mentioned by the Byzantine writer. This opinion will appear the less admissible, when it is considered that the country of the Cossacks, situated around the Sea of Azov, lay directly in the route of all those conquering hordes that issued from Asia to overrun and ravage Europe, and afterwards disappeared successively, without leaving any other trace of their existence than their name in the pages of history.
Is it likely that Kasachia was more fortunate? Is there any probability that its people, after 600 years of absolute obscurity, again arose out of the chaos of all those revolutions, to produce the Cossacks of our day? We cannot think so. Historical inquiries, and above all a knowledge of the regions extending between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian, prove beyond question that all those countries were never occupied by a nation having fixed habitations. We have ourselves traversed those Russian deserts, up to the northern foot of the Caucasus; and except the somewhat modern remains of Madjar, on the borders of the Kouma, we nowhere found any vestige of human occupancy, or any trace of civilisation. It is, therefore, by no means likely, that amidst all the convulsions of the Asiatic invasions, from the ninth to the fifteenth century, whilst so many races were disappearing completely, that a little remote nomade people shall have preserved for 600 years its nationality and its territory, without being swept away and absorbed by all those warlike hordes that must have passed over it in torrents. This would be an historical fact perfectly unique in that part of the world; to us it appears in flagrant contradiction with historical experience. We are of opinion then, that the Cossacks of our day have nothing in common with the Kasachia of Constantino Porphyrogenitus, and that we must look elsewhere for their origin and for the reason of their appellation.
Let us in the first place examine this word Cossack. According to the use in which it was formerly and is still employed, it seems evidently not to belong to a special people, but simply to express the generic character of every nation, having certain distinct manners and customs. Thus in Russia, at this day, the name of Cossacks is given to all those persons who are under military organisation: there are Turcomans, Kalmuks, and Tatars so called in the steppes of the Caspian; and in Bessarabia, some gipsies and a medley of nondescript people constitute the Cossacks of the Dniestr. The Don Cossacks, themselves, attach no historical significance to their designation, which they seem to regard merely as a by-name given to them in former times, and they readily share it with the nomade tribes around them, whose organisation is the same as their own. The only appellation they assume among themselves, is that of true believers.
The existence of the Khirghis Kaissacks of our day, can be traced back to more remote times; but there is certainly no analogy between this Mussulman people and our Cossacks. Furthermore, it seems proved that the Tatars before their invasions of Europe, used to give the appellation of Cossacks to all those individuals of their own race, who, having no property, were obliged to subsist by pillage, or to sell their services to some military leader. Cossack then, according to our apprehension, signifies only a nomade and a vagabond people, and it is likely that the Tatars on their arrival in Europe, gave that name to all the wandering tribes they found in the steppes of Azov and of the Don. What tends still more to confirm this opinion is, that no mention of Cossacks is made by Rubruquis and Du Plan de Carpin, who traversed all the regions of Southern Russia, on their embassy to the grand khan, in the beginning of the thirteenth century.
And now let us ask whence came those nomade people that preceded the modern Cossacks in the steppes of the Don and the Sea of Azov? Here again we must dissent from the views of Dr. Edmund Clarke and Lesur which have been generally adopted in Schnitzler's statistics.
According to the testimony of all historians the Slaves already occupied various parts of Southern Russia, during the first period of the decadence of the Lower Empire: every one knows indeed that the descendants of Rurik often carried their attacks on the emperors of the East up to the very gates of their capital. The annals of Russia also demonstrate the existence of the Slaves at the same period, in all Little Russia, and even in the country of the Don. This region was then called Severa. Its inhabitants, after a long contest with the Petchenegues, emigrated in part, and we now find their name attached to one of the principalities of the Danube, viz., Servia.
Again, it is universally admitted even by the adversaries of our opinions that the Don country was occupied previously to the Tatar invasions by a nomade and warlike people, the Polovtzis, who, there is every reason to think, were no other than Slaves.[13]
It may well be conceived that the dissensions and continual wars between the numerous chieftains, among whom the Russian soil was formerly parceled out, must naturally have produced numerous emigrations; and these partial emigrations being too weak to act against the west, must of course have turned eastward towards those remote regions of the steppes where the fugitives might find freedom and independence. It would be difficult then to disprove that a Slavic people existed on the banks of the Don when the Tatars arrived; and that people was apparently the Polovtzis, an agglomeration of fugitives and malcontents, who, during the convulsions of the Russian empire, under Vladimir the Great's successors, seem to have laid the first foundations of the Cossack power in the steppes of the Sea of Azov and the Don.[14]
The name of the Polovtzis disappeared completely under the Tatar sway; but it would be illogical thence to infer that the people itself utterly perished, and did not share the destiny of the other Sclavonic tribes of Russia. We agree, therefore, with some historians in thinking that the Polovtzis merely exchanged their appellation for that of Cossacks, imposed on them by the Tatars, and made permanent by a servitude of more than three centuries. We have besides already remarked that the Tatars used among themselves to call all adventurers and vagabonds Cossacks: it is not, therefore, surprising that they should on their arrival in Russia, have given this designation to the nomade hordes of the Polovtzis. This historical version seems far more rational than the supposition that the Polovtzis completely disappeared, and were entirely supplanted by a Caucasian race, which had taken part in the expeditions of Batou Khan.
The traveller, who has studied the Cossacks and the mountaineers of the Caucasus, can never admit the doctrine that would make but one nation of these two. Our notions on this subject are corroborated in every point by physiological observations. In the first place, considerations founded on religion and language, are not so lightly to be rejected as Clarke and Lesur assert. The conversion of the Cossacks would not certainly have been passed over unnoticed in the history of the Lower Empire; the Byzantine writers would have been sure to record such a triumph of their creed; but they say not a word about it; and every one knows perfectly well in what manner Christianity was categorically introduced into Russia. Moreover, if the Cossacks had been nothing but Circassians at the beginning of the thirteenth century, it would be hard to account for their ready adoption of a foreign language and religion, at a time when that language and that religion were, if not proscribed, at least much discredited under the Tatar sway. The last Russian expeditions into the Caucasus, towards the sources of the Kouban, have, it is true, given birth to new historical ideas as to that part of Asia. Thus, there have been discovered two churches in a perfect state of preservation, the origin of which is evidently Genoese or Venetian, and we can scarcely fail to recognise in the Circassians some traces of Christianity in the profound respect they bear to the cross. But, on the other hand, nothing indicates that this people was ever Christian; on the contrary, every thing proves that its primitive religion, if its religious notions may be so called, has undergone no alteration. Those Christian edifices, too, which we have alluded to, belong to a later period than the inroads of the Tatar hordes, consequently they can only testify in favour of our views.
No chronicle speaks of the emigration of a Tcherkess people in the middle ages. The only tradition relating to any thing of the kind, is that of a strong tribe from the Caucasus, which, after occupying the plains of the Danube, is said to have settled at last in Pannonia. Every one is aware that mountain tribes are the least migratory of all, and the most attached to their native soil; it is, therefore, natural to suppose that the Circassians, so proud of their independence and so often ineffectually attacked, did not receive the warriors of Genghis Khan as friends, or take part in their sanguinary expeditions.[15] Hence M. Schnitzler appears to me to propound a more than questionable fact when he alleges, following Karamsin, that the Circassians entered Russia with Batou Khan, and so formed by degrees that new people, which, to borrow the language of this statician, on the breaking up of the Tatar rule and the dispersion of the clouds, which till then had hung over their country, appears to us as Russian and Christian, but with Circassian features, with Tatar manners and customs, and hating the Muscovites.
How can we assign such an origin to the Don Cossacks when there exists neither among them, nor among their supposed brethren, any tradition of so modern a fact? Besides, if the Cossacks had really come from the Caucasus, would they not have retained some neighbourly relations with the mountaineers? Is it not a singular notion to take Circassians, the most indomitable of all men, and the most attached to their hereditary usages and manners, to subject them to the Tatars for more than 300 years, and then to transform them at once, and without transition, into a people speaking pure unmixed Sclavonic, and professing the Greek religion? This is certainly one of the most curious of metamorphoses; before it could happen there must have been a combination of circumstances exactly the reverse of those which have really existed. The Circassians, one would think, would have been much more disposed to adopt the religion of the victors, than of the vanquished, the more so as islamism having already at that period made considerable progress in Eastern Caucasus, would give them a much stronger bias towards the Tatars, than towards the wandering hordes of the Polovtzis, from which we derive the Cossacks.
Notwithstanding the assertions of Dr. Clarke, it is not easy to trace much resemblance between the Circassians and the Cossacks. At present we see all the people who dwell at the foot of the Caucasus, generally adopting the habits of the mountain tribes. A great number of Nogai Tatars have become completely blended with them. The Cossacks of the Black Sea have borrowed from them their costume and their arms. The Muscovites and the German colonists themselves have not escaped the energetic influence of the Caucasian tribes; and yet some would have us believe that the Don Cossacks, a Tcherkess tribe, separated from the parent stock not more than 400 years, have undergone a contrary impulse during all that time, and now present, in a manner, no resemblance to their ancestors. The two peoples differ in costume, arms, industry, and every other particular. The Circassians are extremely apt in manufactures, and excel in all sorts of handicraft productions, to which they give a very marked and original character. The Cossacks, on the contrary, have little or no turn for manufactures; in this respect they exhibit no trace of what characterises the Caucasian tribes in so high a degree. As for the Tatar habits, of which M. Schnitzler speaks, I know not where to look for them, unless they consist in the trousers generally worn by the Cossack women. After all, the Tatars must necessarily have left some traces of their habits in the countries over which they ruled for so many centuries.
The real point of contact between the Cossacks and the Circassians, consists in their love of freedom, and their intense hatred for every thing Russian. But these sentiments evidently flow from their ancient and primitive constitution; and if they detest the Russians, it is because the Muscovite sovereigns, who have never ceased to attack their privileges, have at last succeeded in annihilating their whole political existence.
Undoubtedly the Cossacks are not pure Sclavonians, like the people of Great Russia, but are mixed up with many other races. The Don country long remained a soil of freedom, a real land of asylum for all refugees. The Circassians have probably not been strangers to their past history, and the adventurous life of the Cossack must have fascinated many a mountain chief. History, too, informs us that the Sclavons of Poland have mingled their blood with that of the inhabitants of the Don country. It is this medley of races, and the combination of all these various influences, added to the thoroughly republican character of their primitive constitution, that give the Cossacks their intellectual superiority, and make them a nation apart. But the principle stock is nevertheless Sclavonic.
The partisans of the Circassian origin have also dwelt on the resemblance between the name of the capital of the Don country, and that of a Caucasian tribe. But really when a historical question of this importance is under discussion, such a resemblance cannot be of much weight. We know that some fugitives from the Boristhenes, about the year 1569, fell in with Cossacks on the Don, and joined with them in an attack on Azov, which then belonged to the Turks. It was just about this period, 1570, that Staro Tcherkask was founded. We should hence be disposed to believe that the fugitives from the Ukraine had a great share in the creation of that town, and that they called it Tcherkask, in memory of the name of the old capital of their native land.
The Don Cossacks appear to us for the first time in the thirteenth century, on the ruins of the Tatar empire. Not till then did they begin to make a certain figure in the history of the Muscovite empire. In the reign of Ivan IV. the Terrible, they put themselves under the protection of Russia. From that time until near the end of the last century, we see them sometimes marching under the banners of the Muscovite sovereigns, sometimes rising against them, and often bringing the empire to the very verge of ruin. Their political condition was in those days a real republic, founded on a basis of absolute equality. The head of the government, styled ataman, was selected by the whole assembled nation, and retained his office but for five years; but his power was dictatorial, and no one could call him to account for his acts, even after the expiration of his office. All the subaltern leaders were likewise elected, and retained their posts for a greater or less time, according to circumstances. Equality, however, resumed its sway at the end of each military campaign; each officer, on returning into private life, enjoyed only the rights common to all; and the colonel or starshine often made the ensuing campaign as a private soldier. Aristocracy was totally unknown to the Don Cossacks in those days; if some families were distinguished from the rest by their greater influence, they owed this solely to their courage and their exploits. So strong was then the sense of independence, that the Cossacks despised as vile mercenaries those who took permanent service under the Russian sovereigns. As for the imperial suzerainty, it was limited to the right of calling for a military contingent in case of war, and of disposing of a small body of troops to defend the frontiers against the nomades of the steppes.
Cossack freedom was doomed to perish when brought into collision with the principles of absolutism and servitude which rule in the Russian empire; accordingly, as soon as the Empress Catherine II. felt strong enough to make the attempt, she decided on a radical change in the political constitution of the Don country.
The first of her ukases to this effect enacted that all the Cossack officers in the service of Russia should retain their rank and privileges on their return to their own country; a regulation directly opposed to the habits and usages of that republican people. How, indeed, could that haughty soldiery have endured that slave-officers, as it called them, should be put on the same footing with its own, elected by the acclamations of the nation? A revolt ensued, but it was promptly put down. The illustrious Potemkin could not understand that insurrection, for it seemed to him incredible that the Cossacks should rebel because they were granted almost all the privileges of Russian officers. After these unhappy troubles, their elections were abolished, and their political system was gradually changed, until it came to resemble that of a Russian government. Count Platof was the last ataman of the Cossacks, and he owed the authority he was allowed to enjoy, in a great measure to the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed by the wars of the empire.
The Don country continued through the last century as before, to be a land of asylum and freedom for all refugees. This led to the settlement of a great number of Russians among the Cossacks. The Emperor Paul took advantage of this circumstance to secure the attachment of the principal families by publishing an ukase, in which he at once, and without warning, declared all the Russian fugitives slaves of the landowners, whose patronage they had accepted. This first partition of the people was not the last; another ukase of the same sovereign completed the work of Catherine II., abolished equality, and constituted an aristocracy by ennobling all the officers and employes of the government. The nobility at present amount to a considerable number, and all the officers are taken from that body. The young Cossacks, like the Russians, enter the St. Petersburg corps as cadets, at ten or twelve years of age; after some years they join a regiment as junker, and two or three months afterwards they become officers.
The political power of the Cossacks being annihilated, active means were taken to deprive them of all military strength, by dispersing them all over the empire, and stationing them wherever there were quarantines, custom-house lines, and hostile frontiers to guard. Cossack posts were simultaneously established on the frontiers of Poland, and at the foot of the Caucasus. Lastly, every means of enfeeblement was largely employed, and after the death of Platof, under pretext of rewarding the nation for its devotedness during the campaign of Moscow, the functions of ataman-in-chief were suppressed, and the title was conferred on the heir-apparent.
All these arbitrary measures, which, after all cannot be blamed, have naturally excited the most violent discontent in the country of the Don, and the Cossacks would undoubtedly cause the empire serious uneasiness in case of war. The government is not ignorant of this hostile temper. In recent times it did not dare to trust the Cossacks with real pieces of artillery, and the regiments were compelled to exercise with wooden cannons. It is certain that the campaign of 1812 would not have been so disastrous for France, if Napoleon had taken care to send emissaries among the inhabitants of the Don with promises to re-establish their ancient political constitution. I have questioned a great number of military men on this subject, and all were unanimous in assuring me of the alacrity with which the Cossacks would then have joined the French army. Nothing can give an idea of the antipathy they cherish to their masters; the feeling pervades all classes, in spite of every effort of the government. The Russians affect so much disdain for the Cossack nobles, that the latter, notwithstanding their epaulettes and their decorations, cannot but bitterly regret the old republican constitution. Furthermore, the military service is so onerous, that it checks all agricultural and industrial activity; for be it observed, that the Cossacks of the present day are far from being the plunderers they were in former times. The service is to them but a profitless task, and they all long eagerly for a sedentary life, which would allow them to attend to rural occupations, and to trade.
The country of the Don Cossacks is now definitively a Russian government. All the laws of the empire are there in full force, and the administrative forms are the same, under other names. Nevertheless, the still free attitude of the Cossacks has not hitherto permitted the installation of the Russian employes among them. Within the last three years only, the government has succeeded in having itself represented at Novo Tcherkask, by a general placed at the head of the military staff of the country. The Cossacks regard this innovation with dislike, and spare their new military superior no annoyance. The following is the present organisation of the Don Cossacks:--
The ataman (locum tenens) holding the grade of lieutenant-general, is the military and civil head of the government, and at the same time the president of the various tribunals of the capital. The functions of vice-president having been conferred since 1841 on the general of the staff before mentioned, the latter is in fact the sole influential authority in the country.
The province of the Don Cossacks is divided into seven civil and four military districts; the courts are similar to those of the other governments.
The army amounts at present, to fifty-four regiments, of 850 men each (not including the two regiments of the emperor and the grand duke) and nine companies of artillery, having each eight pieces of cannon. In 1840, there were twenty-eight regiments in active service, fifteen of them in the Caucasus, with three companies of artillery. At the same time, nine other regiments were under orders to march for the lines of the Kouban.
All the Cossacks are soldiers born: their legal term of service is twenty years abroad, or twenty-five at home. But no regard is paid to this regulation, for most of them remain in active service for thirty or even forty years. They pay no taxes, but are obliged to equip themselves at their own expense, and receive the ordinary pay of Russian troops only from the day they cross their native frontiers.[16]
The organisation of the regiments is effected in rather a curious manner. When a regiment is to be sent to the Caucasus, each district receives notice how many soldiers and officers it is to supply, and then the first names on the military books are taken without distinction. The place of muster is usually near the frontier, and every one arrives there as he pleases, without concerning himself about others. When all the men are assembled, they are classed by squadrons, the requisite officers are set over them, and the detachment begins its march. Hence we see there is nothing fixed in the composition of the regiments. The Cossacks are subjected nevertheless to the European discipline, and formed into regular corps; but this innovation seems likely to be fatal to them, by completely destroying their valuable aptitude for acting as skirmishers. The Emperor Nicholas visited the Don country in 1837, and reviewed the Cossack troops at Novo Tcherkask, but it appears that he was exceedingly displeased with the condition of the regulars. Accordingly, that he might not expose them to the criticism of foreigners, he took care not to be accompanied by the brilliant cortege of European officers who had been present at the grand military parades of Vosnecensk.
The population of the Don Cossacks amounts to about 600,000, occupying 14,000,000 hectares of land, and divided into four very distinct classes: 1. The aristocracy founded by the Emperor Paul; 2. The free Cossacks; 3. The merchants; 4. The slaves. The free Cossacks form the mass of the population, and furnish the horse soldiers; they have however the opportunity of acquiring nobility by military service, but to this end, they must serve for twelve years as non-commissioned officers.
The merchants form a peculiar class, which can hardly exceed 500 in number. They are not bound to do military service, but in lieu of this, they pay taxes to the government. The slaves, whose origin we have described, amount to about 85,000 souls.
The revenues of the government of the Cossacks, are about 2,000,000 rubles, more than sufficient for the expenditure, that is to say, for the payment of the employes. The spirit duties produce 1,500,000 rubles, the rest is made up by the salt works of the Manitch, and the pasturage dues.
The country of the Don Cossacks is bounded on the north by the two governments of Voroneje and Saratof; on the east by the latter, and that of Astrakhan; on the south by the government of the Caucasus, the country of the Cossacks of the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov; on the west, by the governments of Voroneje and Iekaterinoslav and the Ukraine slobodes. All this territory forms a vast extent, no part of which is detached as M. Schnitzler asserts; on the contrary, the regency of Taganrok is completely encompassed by it.
The country of the Cossacks may be divided into two very distinct parts: that situated to the north and west, presenting lofty plains intersected by many rivers and ravines, is admirably adapted for agriculture, and possesses excellent pastures. Among its numerous rivers, are the Donetz, the Mious, and the Kalmious, which marks its frontier on the west, and the Khoper and the Medveditza on the north-east. It is principally along the two latter streams, that the Cossacks have established their most celebrated studs, among the foremost of which, are those of Count Platof. The second division of the country, consists of all the steppes that extend along the left bank of the Don, to the confines of the government of the Caucasus, and along the Manitch to the frontier of Astrakhan. The soil is here unvaried; it is the Russian desert in all its uniformity, and the basin of the muddy and brackish Manitch, is perfectly in harmony with the regions it traverses. But those monotonous plains are a source of wealth to the Cossacks, who rear vast herds of horses and other cattle; several thousands of Kalmucks too find subsistence in them.
Until 1841, the government of the Cossacks exhibited one very singular peculiarity. Its whole territory formed but one vast communal domain, without any individual owners or ownership. After several fruitless attempts, the Russian government finally determined on dividing the lands, and the work must by this time have been completed. Besides the new arrangements adopted, there have been granted to each family thirty hectares of land for each male, and fifteen additional for each slave. After this distribution, there will remain to the government, 2,000,000 hectares of land, on which it will no doubt establish Muscovite colonies. This division of the land is a final blow to the old Cossack institutions, and ere long the population will consist only of nobles and peasants, just as in the rest of Russia. The peasants are free it is true, but their properties will soon be absorbed by the wealthier and more powerful: and then an ukase will do the work of establishing slavery in the country. The community of landed property was hitherto the only obstacle to a complete severance between the new nobles and the other Cossacks. It was another remnant of the old republican equality, and was naturally doomed to fall before the principles of unity and centralisation of the Russian government. When we see Russia laying her hand on all the free populations of the southern part of the empire, and bringing them gradually under the yoke of serfdom, we cannot but be struck with astonishment, and compare the revolution it is now effecting before our eyes, with that which so deplorably signalised the Roman sway.
It may easily be conceived how fatal the military organisation of the Cossacks must be to their prosperity and well-being. Never sure of what the morrow may bring forth, and liable at any moment to be called to arms, they have of necessity fallen into indifference and sloth. Their domestic ties are broken, for they are often many years without seeing their wives and children. Under such a system, all intellectual improvement becomes impossible; and there has also resulted from it an incipient demoralisation, compressed as yet by the force of primitive manners, but which will not fail at last to spread over the whole population. Yet the Cossacks are eminently intelligent. I saw thirty young men at Novo Tcherkask execute topographical plans extremely well, after a few weeks' study. The Russian generals themselves could not refrain from expressing their surprise to me at so rapid a progress. Let Russia renounce the oppressive system she is forcing on the Cossacks; let the latter, on their part, make up their mind to admit that their ancient constitution is in our day become an utopia; and the Don country will soon make rapid advances in colonisation, and exhibit all that constitutes the prosperity and wealth of a nation.
The means of instruction enjoyed by the Cossacks are still extremely limited. In the whole country there is but one gymnasium, very recently established in Novo Tcherkask; but the wealthier Cossacks have long been used to have their children educated in the neighbouring governments, particularly in Taganrok, where the private schools kept by foreigners afford them great advantages.
The rearing of cattle, especially of horses, is now the chief source of gain to the Cossacks. Count Platof's studs, as we have already said, are reputed the best: they are descended from the trans-Kouban races, crossed by Persian and Khivian stallions, procured by the late count during the war of 1796 with Persia. Very good cavalry horses are also produced by Platof's stallions out of Tatar and Kalmuck mares. Count Platof's horses fetch from 250 to 350 rubles; but in the steppes of the Manitch, where there are very extensive herds, the price seldom exceeds 150. The care of the herds is chiefly committed to Kalmucks; usually 100 horses are kept by one family, five hundred by three, a thousand by five, and from 1500 to 2000 by six. Except a few proprietors, who are careful about the improvement of the breed, the Cossacks allow their vast herds to wander about the steppes without any care or superintendence. The horses of the Don never enter a stable; summer and winter they are in the open air, and must procure their own food, for which they have often to strive against the snow; hence they become extremely vigorous, and support the most trying campaigns with remarkable hardiness. Nothing can be more simple and expeditious than the way in which they are broken in. The horse selected is caught with a noose; he is saddled and bridled; the rider mounts him, and he is allowed to gallop over the steppe until he falls exhausted. From that moment he is almost always perfectly tamed, and may be used without danger. I rode a mare thus broken, in one of my longest journeys on horseback. Six days before my departure she was completely free; yet I never rode a more docile animal.
The Cossacks have three sorts of horned cattle, the Kalmuck, the Hungarian, and the Dutch breeds. The first is generally preferred because it does not require to be stalled either winter or summer, or to receive any particular care, and always can pick up its feed in the steppes. At the same time the loss of cattle is enormous in long and severe winters, for the proprietors can never procure hay for more than six weeks' consumption, on account of the great numbers of their herds. At the end of the year 1839, the Don country possessed in cattle:
Horned cattle 1,013,106 Sheep 2,310,445 Goats 53,221 Camels 1,692 Horses 326,788 --------- Total 3,705,252
In that year the sheep produced 5,698,000 kilogrammes of wool, which was exported. Of the above number of sheep, only 308,652 are merinos. The wool of the latter fetched 156 rubles the 100 kilogrammes, whilst that of the native sheep did not sell for more than 58 to 62. But the merinos require too much care, and I much doubt that they will ever be reared on a large scale by the Cossacks. Besides, as we have already seen, the breeding of merinos is far from being as profitable at this day as it was formerly.
Agriculture, properly so called, must naturally be in a depressed condition in a country of which the tenth part of the population is continually either in active service, or in readiness to be called out. No more corn is cultivated than is sufficient for the subsistence of the inhabitants. The crop of 1839 was 6,953,814 hectolitres, a quantity considerably too small for seed, and for the consumption of a nation that annually consumes 6.18 hectolitres per head. The Cossacks were, therefore, obliged to draw on the reserved stores and on the neighbouring governments. In general, whatever M. Schnitzler may say to the contrary, their agriculture produces no more than is barely necessary; notwithstanding the advantages of a great navigable river, and its position on the Sea of Azov, the Don country has not yet been able to export any corn.
The cultivation of the vine is the only one that has prospered in any remarkable degree among the Cossacks; it prevails in the southern regions on the banks of the Don and of the Axai. They now reckon 4514 vineyards, yielding annually, on an average, from 20,000 to 25,000 hectolitres of wine, and 300 to 400 of brandy. In 1841, the production amounted to nearly 62,500; and when I was in Novo Tcherkask, grapes were selling there for three rubles the 100 kilogrammes. Sparkling wines are made, of which the Don country now exports more than a million of bottles yearly. The best wine of a certain Abrahamof is usually charged for at the rate of six rubles in the inns of Novo Tcherkask. The reader will, no doubt, be surprised to hear of such quantities of sparkling wines; but Russia is unquestionably the country in which that sort of beverage is most esteemed; and as the petty nobles and the employes cannot afford to drink champagne, they have recourse to the Cossack vintage. The latter is consumed in incredible quantity, principally in the fairs, where no bargain can be concluded without a case of Don wine. It is very agreeable, and is much liked, even by foreigners. It is to Frenchmen the Cossacks owe this branch of industry.
Fishing also forms an important source of income for the Cossacks. It is carried on chiefly at the mouths of the Don. In 1838, it produced 304,000 kilogrammes of sturgeons yielding caviare, and more than 20,000,000 of fish of different kinds, which they salt and send to the neighbouring governments. Bees must also be enumerated among the sources of wealth in the country. The Mious district, which possesses nearly 31,000 hives, produced in 1839, 124,336 kilogrammes of honey, and 21,056 kilogrammes of wax.
From these hints it will be seen how rich is the country of the Cossacks, and how high a degree of prosperity it might reach under an enlightened and liberal administration. Manufacturing industry is the only one that, as yet, has made no progress in it. It is said not to possess a single manufactory, which is natural enough, considering the military organisation of the nation. There is an extreme want of workmen; the few found in the country, who come from the neighbouring governments, demand very high pay, as much as two rubles and a half a day, which is exorbitant in Russia. As for mineral wealth, the Don country possesses abundance of coal and anthracite, the latter of which is worked in the neighbourhood of Novo Tcherkask.
Among the tribes incorporated with the Don Cossacks, the Kalmucks demand especial mention. In the reign of the Emperor Paul, an ukase was issued, commanding a census to be taken of all the nomade tribes subject to Russia. This certain presage of some tax or other, spread consternation among the Kalmucks; their hordes began to break up, and great numbers of them took refuge with the Cossacks. But the fatal ukase soon pursued them to their new asylum, whereupon some returned to the steppes of the Caspian, whilst the rest being retained by the Cossacks, were put under the same military and civil system of administration as the inhabitants of the Don. These Kalmucks now form a population of about 15,000, and encamp on both banks of the Manitch, about 100 miles from the confluence with the Don. In order to give some notion of the manners and customs of this people, I will here copy some fragments from an account of a scientific journey I made along the Manitch, to determine the difference of level between the Black Sea and the Caspian.
It was towards the end of May, 1841, I set out from Novo Tcherkask, to explore the Manitch, a paltry stream, but which, nevertheless, had for a long while the honour of marking the boundary between Europe and Asia. I was accompanied by my friend, Baron Kloch, a German by birth, and a most agreeable man, lately arrived for the first time in Russia. His intelligent conversation was a great source of enjoyment to me. Six hours' travel brought us to Axai, a charming stanitza, built like an amphitheatre on the right bank of the Don. It is the great trading place of the Cossacks, and but for the vicinity of Rostof, a Russian, and of course a privileged town, it would have been made the capital of the Don country, and the general entrepot of all the traffic from the north of the empire. The project was even entertained at first, but it was defeated partly by intrigue, and partly I believe by the obstinacy of Count Platof. Axai is, nevertheless, the handsomest stanitza in the country. Its balconied houses, painted in different colours, its port, the activity prevailing in it, its lively and bustling population, all excite the traveller's attention and curiosity. When I arrived in the town the inundations of the Don were at their height, and as far as the eye could reach the waters covered the low plain that stretches along its left bank. We were soon furnished with a boat having on board a pilot and four excellent rowers, and at nine in the evening, we embarked to cross the river. The evening was perfectly calm and beautiful; and I shall never forget the lodkas with bellied sails, gliding down with the current, the melancholy songs of the Russian boatmen, the sounds from Axai gradually dying away in the distance, and our boat skimming across the smooth surface of the water, which broke in thousands of sparks from the oars. At midnight we landed before Makinskaia, where we passed the remainder of the night on heaps of hay, in the court-yard of a paltry inn.
At daybreak next morning, the saddle horses were ready, and we started for Manitchkaia on the confluence of the Manitch with the Don. After some hours' riding we were brought to a halt by the overflow of the latter river; and for want of a better road to reach the stanitza, we were obliged to betake ourselves to wading through the temporary lake. This was the most unpleasant part of our journey. For a distance of more than four leagues our horses plodded on through thick mud with the water up to their bellies; and sometimes they were forced to swim. Besides this, we were tormented by clouds of gnats. At last our situation became quite intolerable; for in the very middle of this passage we were assailed by a violent hurricane, the rain came down in torrents; our baggage waggon broke down, and we very nearly lost all its contents. The whole day was consumed in making the six leagues to Manitchkaia. Our Kalmucks only succeeded in extricating the waggon from the hole in which it was stuck fast, by yoking one of their horses to it by the tail. This is an infallible means as we often found by experience; nothing can resist the violent efforts of the unfortunate horse when he finds himself in that predicament.
Leaving Manitchkaia, we skirted along the basin of the Manitch. The first dwellings we descried were some miserable Tatar cabins, surrounded with brambles and thistles. We found in them an old Tatar captain, a relic of the French campaign. He amused us a good deal by his pompous encomiums on the valour and tall stature of the Prussians. A Frenchman, said he, does not fear ten Russians, but a Prussian would settle at least ten Frenchmen.
For three days our journey was without interest. No traces of buildings were to be seen; at intervals there appeared in the middle of the steppes, a Kalmuck tent, the inhabitants of which kept a large herd of horses; then here and there some strayed camels, and these were the only objects that broke the dreary monotony of the wilderness. But on the fourth day, we reached the vicinity of the great Khouroul of the Kalmucks, the residence of their high priest. One of our Cossacks was sent forward to announce our visit, and an hour after his departure two priests came galloping up to us. After complimenting us in the name of the grand Lama, they presented us with brandy distilled from mare's milk, in token of welcome, and fell in to line with our party. Some minutes afterwards we descried the white tents of the Khouroul. Our party was every moment swelled by fresh reinforcements, and we had soon fifty horsemen caracoling by our sides. Having reached the centre of the Khouroul, we alighted, and then walking between two lines of priests dressed in garments of the most glaring colours, we were conducted to the high priest's tent. This venerable representative of the great Dalai Lama, was an old man upwards of seventy, entirely bald, and with features of a much less Kalmuck cast than his countrymen. He was wrapped in a wide tunic of yellow brocade, lined with cherry red silk, and his fingers were busy with the beads of his chaplet. After many salutations on both sides we sat down on a sofa, and then, according to the invariable Kalmuck usage, we were helped to brandy and koumis, a beverage at which my friend Kloch made very queer faces. Next, I presented the high priest with two pounds of bad tobacco, purchased at Novo Tcherkask, which I passed off as genuine Latakieh. He was so delighted with my present that he did honour to it on the spot, with every mark of extreme satisfaction. This high priest will have the honour to be burned after his death, and his ashes, formed into a paste with a certain ingredient, will be worked into a little statue, which will adorn the temple to be erected to his memory. His successor is already nominated; he looks like a stupid fanatic, puffed up with the importance of his future dignity; we afterwards saw him acquit himself of his religious duties, with a conscientiousness quite rare among the Cossack Kalmucks. All the priests of this khouroul, appeared to us incomparably less devout than those of the Volga and the Caspian. They have very little reverence for their spiritual chief; they seem fully aware of the absurdities of their religious notions and ceremonies, and if they set any value by their functions, it is because they enable them to lead a life of indolence and sensuality, and exempt them from military service. The laity seems to be very indifferent as to religious matters. The women alone seem attached to their ancient principles; one of them burst into a fury because her husband allowed us to see and touch the leaves of her prayer-book. It is to their intercourse with the Cossacks that we must attribute the lapse of these Kalmucks from the strictness of the primitive rule, which has been preserved almost unimpaired among the Kalmucks of the Caspian.
After leaving the high priest's tent we attended the religious ceremonies, in which there was nothing very striking. A sheep was afterwards killed in honour of our visit, and was served up, cut into small pieces, in a huge cast-iron pan. The ragout was black and detestable, but hunger made it seem delicious.
The women of the vicinity arrived in the evening, and began to sing in chorus, parading round the khouroul. Their strains were profoundly melancholy; nothing like them had ever yet struck my ears. Their voices were so sonorous and vibrating, that the sound was like that of brazen instruments; and heard in that vast solemn wilderness, it produced the most singular impression. After walking half-a-dozen times round the khouroul the singers halted, and forming line with their faces towards the temple, they stretched out their arms and prostrated themselves repeatedly. The women having ended, next came the mandjis or musicians, who made the air resound with the braying of their trumpets at the moment when the sun was descending below the horizon.
Next day we left the khouroul to return to the banks of the Manitch; I then continued my levelling along the course of that stream up to the point, where eighteen months before, on my way back from the Caspian, I had been stopped by want of water and pasture. In our return journey we passed through numerous Kalmuck camps on the right bank of the Manitch, and were everywhere received with the liveliest delight. As all these nomades are exclusively engaged in rearing cattle, our curiosity was greatly excited by the prodigious herds of camels, horses, and oxen that covered the plain.
Before we reached the Don we spent the last two nights in the lonely steppe, under the open sky. But six hours afterwards we were in Taganrok, in the drawing-room of the amiable English consul, surrounded by all the comforts of civilised life.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] We are quite convinced that the Comans mentioned by the Byzantine writers, are identical with the Kaptschaks of the Oriental historians. Rubruck's narrative supplies proof of this; moreover both peoples spoke Turkish. But in spite of all Klaproth's assertions, we do not believe that the Polovtzis of the Slavic chroniclers were Comans; for it seems to us far more rational to look for the descendants of the Comans among the Mussulman inhabitants of the south of the empire, who, as we learn from historic records, were already established in the same regions under the name of Kaptschak, at the arrival of Genghis Khan's Mongols.
[14] Note that in our day the Cossack population though augmented during a succession of ages, by numerous emigrations, does not exceed 600,000 souls; it must, therefore, in all probability, have been much less considerable in the fifteenth century, a supposition which further confirms our opinion that the Cossacks never formed a distinct nation.
[15] According to Du Plan de Carpin, the Circassians do not appear to have escaped unscathed from the attacks of the Mongols; but there seems no reason to think that they were really subjugated.
[16] Since we left Russia it has been proposed to equip the Cossack regiments at the cost of the government. The country would, of course, in that case be taxed, and would cease to differ in any respect from the other provinces.
Chapter XVIII
JOURNEY FROM NOVO TCHERKASK ALONG THE DON--ANOTHER KNAVISH POSTMASTER--MUSCOVITE MERCHANTS--COSSACK STANITZAS.
Beyond Novo Tcherkask the road to Astrakhan runs northward along the right bank of the Don; the country still continuing the same naked and monotonous appearance; it is only in the neighbourhood of the river that its desolation is here and there relieved by a few clumps of trees in the ravines.
It is certainly not without reason that the Russians boast of the rapid travelling in their country; its posts would be unrivalled in Europe were it not for the vexations practised by the employes at the stations. On the whole we had hitherto had no great reason to complain; the official papers with which we were furnished smoothed many difficulties; but at the first station beyond Novo Tcherkask we endured the common fate of all who travel without titular grade or decoration, and were mercilessly fleeced. We arrived towards evening followed by another carriage of which we were but a few minutes in advance. A caleche without horses seemed a bad omen to us as we entered the court-yard; and the first answer given to our Cossack was, that we could not have horses until the next morning. The prospect of passing the night in a miserable hovel was disagreeable enough; but what remedy had we with a postmaster, who opening all his stables, showed that he had no horses? After waiting a full half hour to no purpose our interpreter explored the vicinity of the station, and on his return, some rubles bestowed on the head of the establishment procured us all the horses we wanted. We put to and started immediately, leaving our companions behind us; but they overtook us an hour afterwards, having done like ourselves; and so it appeared at last, that there were horses enough for us all.
The travellers who followed us were young Muscovite merchants returning from some fair in the Caucasus. They amused themselves all night with letting off rockets and all kinds of fireworks, the sudden flash of which, lighting up the deep darkness of the steppes, produced a most striking effect.
We passed on the following day through several stanitzas. These Cossack hamlets have a far more pleasing appearance than the Russian villages. The houses of which they consist are small, almost all of them built of painted wood, with green window-shutters. They have only a ground-floor, surrounded by a miniature gallery, and look as if they were merely intended for pretty toys. The interiors are extremely neat, and show an appreciation of domestic comfort of which the Russians betray no trace. You find in them table-linen, delf plates, forks, and all the most necessary utensils. The Cossacks have usually two dwellings adjoining each other. One of these, that which we have been speaking of, is occupied in summer, and almost always contains one handsome apartment, adorned with stained paper, images, flowers, and groups of arms; it is the room used on grand occasions, and for the accommodation of strangers. The other dwelling is built of earth, and resembles the kates of the Muscovite peasants; it contains but one room, in which the whole family huddle themselves together in winter for the more warmth.
In general, only women and children are to be seen in the stanitzas. The whole male population is under arms, with the exception of some veterans who have purchased, by forty years' service, the right of returning home to die. All the burden of labour falls on the women; it is they who must repair the houses, whitewash them, dress the furs, take care of the children, and tend the cattle. It is really inconceivable how they can accomplish so many laborious tasks.
At Piatisbanskaia, a charming stanitza, shaded by handsome trees, and rising in an amphitheatre on the banks of the Don, we turned off from the post-road, and after crossing the river, entered on a sea of sand, through which we worked our way with immense difficulty. The peasants' horses are less used than those of the post to such toilsome marches, and it was really piteous to see their panting distress. The reflected glare of the sun, and the absence of any breath of wind, made this day's journey one of the most oppressive we encountered. It took us four hours to get over nine versts (less than six English miles). Though I wore a thick veil and blue spectacles, my eyelids were so swollen I could scarcely open them. Towards noon we at last reached a poor lonely village, where we rested until nightfall.
The country from Piatisbanskaia is dreary, and void of vegetation. The stanitzas are few and far between, the land lies waste, and the sand-hills and hot winds betoken the approach to the deserts of the Caspian. Nothing is more saddening to the imagination, than the lifeless aspect and uniform hues of these endless plains. One is surprised to meet in them, from time to time, some miserable Cossack villages, and cannot tell how the inhabitants can exist amidst such desolation. This sad sterility is the work of men, rather than of nature. The present system of government of the Don Cossacks is an insuperable bar to agricultural improvement; and so long as it exists, the land must remain uncultivated.
But, as we have already remarked, all is contrast in Russia. Extremes of all kinds meet there without any transition: from a desert you pass into a populous town, from a cabin to a palace, from a Tatar mosque into an ancient Christian cathedral, from an arid plain into the cheerful German colonies. Surprises follow one upon the other without end, and give a peculiar zest to travelling, scarcely to be experienced in any other part of Europe.
It is particularly in approaching Sarepta that one feels the force of these reflections: the novel impressions that there await the traveller who arrives benumbed in soul from the dreary wilderness, come upon him with the bewildering effect of a marvellous dream. Even were Sarepta whisked away, and set down in the middle of Switzerland, one could not fail to be delighted with so charming a place; but to feel all its real excellence, one should come to it weary and worn as we were, one should have known what it was to long for a little shade and water, as for manna from the skies, and have plodded on for many days through a country like that we have described, under the unmitigating rays of a roasting sun.
Picture to yourself a pretty little German town, with its high gabled houses, its fruit trees, fountains, and promenades, its scrupulous neatness, and its comfortable and happy people, and you will have an idea of Sarepta: industry, the fine arts, morality, sociability, commerce, are all combined in that favoured spot.
The Moravian colony, shut in within a bend of the Volga, in the midst of the Kalmuck hordes, eloquently demonstrates what miracles decision and perseverance can effect. It is the first shoot planted by Europe in that remote region, amidst those pastoral tribes so jealous of their independence; and the changes wrought by the Moravian brethren on the rude soil they have fertilised, and on the still ruder character of the inhabitants, give striking evidence of the benefits of our civilisation.
Every thing breathes of peace and contentment in this little town, on which rests the blessing of God. It is the only place I know in Russia in which the eye is never saddened by the sight of miserable penury. No bitter thought mingles there with the interesting observations gleaned by curiosity. Every house is a workshop, every individual a workman. During the day every one is busy; but in the evening the thriving and cheerful population throng the walks and the square, and give a most pleasing air of animation to the town.
Like most Germans, the Moravian brethren are passionately fond of music. The piano, heard at evening in almost every house, reminds them of their fatherland, and consoles them for the vicinity of the Kalmucks.
We visited the establishments of the Moravian sisters, where, by a fortunate chance, we met a German lady who spoke French very well. The life of the sisters is tranquil, humble, and accordant with the purest principles of morality and religion. They are forty in number, and appear happy, as much so at least as it is possible to be in a perfectly monastic state of existence. Consummate order, commodious apartments, and a handsome garden, make the current of their lives flow with unruffled smoothness, as far as outward things are concerned. Music, too, is a great resource for them. We observed in the prayer-room three pianos, with which they accompany the hymns they sing in chorus. They execute very pretty work in pearls and tapestry, which they sell for the benefit of the community. There would be nothing very extraordinary in these details, if any other country were in question; we are afraid they will even be thought too commonplace; but if the reader will only reflect for a moment on the position of this oasis of civilisation on the far verge of Europe, in the midst of the Kalmucks and on the confines of the country of the Khirghis, he will think our enthusiasm very natural and excusable.
The only thing that rather offended our eyes was the would-be finery of the women's dress. Would any one imagine that in this remote little corner of the earth they should be ridiculous enough to ape French fashions and wear bonnets with flowers? How preferable are the simple demure costume of the Mennonite women and their little Alsacian caps, to the mingled elegance and shabbiness of the Moravian sisters. Their dress is quite out of character, and makes them look like street ballad-singers.
To give an idea of it, here follows an exact description of the costume of a fashionably-dressed young lady of Sarepta (our host's daughter.):--A flowered muslin gown, short and narrow; a black apron; a large Madras handkerchief on the neck; a patch-work ridicule carried in the hand; thick-soled shoes, bare arms, and a pink bonnet with flowers. To complete the portrait, we must add a very pretty face, and plump, well-rounded arms. The women here are much handsomer than in any other part of Russia; many of them are remarkable specimens of the North German style of beauty.
On the evening of our arrival we were advised to attend the funeral music performed as a last honour to one of the principal inhabitants of Sarepta. The body was laid out in a mortuary chapel, with the family and numerous friends around it, and was not to be removed to the cemetery until the fourth day; an excellent custom, which may prevent horrible accidents.
It would be difficult to imagine any thing more melancholy than the harmony produced by the voices and the brass instruments that alternately answered each other, and seemed the echoes of the saddest and most profound emotions of the heart. A great number of persons were present, and all the solemnity of the occasion did not hinder those worthy Germans from gathering round us with the liveliest curiosity, and putting a thousand questions to us about the purport of our travels.
The association of the Moravian brethren dates from the celebrated John Huss, who was burnt at Constance, in 1419. Their history is but a long series of persecutions. The issue of the Thirty Years' War, so disastrous for Frederick, the elector palatine, and king of Bohemia, was particularly fatal to them. At that period most of the Protestants of Bohemia fled their country, and spread themselves through Saxony, Brandenburg, Poland, and Hungary. The vengeance of the Emperor Frederick II. pursued them without ceasing, and great numbers of them perished in want and wretchedness. In 1722, Christian David, a carpenter, and some others of the proscribed, obtained permission from the Count of Zinzendorf, in Lusace, to settle on his lands. They reached their place of refuge in secret, with their wives and children, and David struck his axe into a tree, exclaiming: "Here shall the bird find a dwelling, and the swallow a nest." His hopes were not disappointed. The new establishment assumed the name of Herrenhut (The Lord's Keeping), and its members were soon known in Germany only by that appellation. Such was the beginning of the new evangelical society of the Brethren of the Unity of the Confession of Augsburg. Herrenhut, the central establishment, throve rapidly, and became known all over Europe for its industry and its manufactures; and by and by, when the proselytising spirit had possessed the brethren, they extended their relations over all parts of the world.
Shortly after the Empress Catherine II. had made known to Europe that Russia was open to foreigners, and that she would bestow lands the immigrants, a deputation from Herrenhut to St. Petersburg decided on the formation of a Moravian colony in the government of Astrakhan. Five of the brethren visited the banks of the Volga in 1769, and on the 3rd of September of the same year, the colony was settled at the confluence of the Sarpa with the Volga, and consisted at that time of thirty persons of both sexes. Its name was borrowed from the Bible, and an olive and a wheatsheaf were chosen for its arms.
It was only by dint of courage and perseverance that these first colonists succeeded in their enterprise, surrounded as they were on all sides by the savage hordes of the Kalmucks, having no knowledge of the language of the country, and situated at more than 120 versts from any Russian town. But after the first difficulties were surmounted, their prosperity was rapid. As we have already said, the Moravian brethren form a vast society, spread throughout all parts of the world for the propagation of the Gospel; but, moreover, for the better fulfilment of their mission they are all required by the rules of their order to know some trade, so as to be able to support themselves by the work of their own hands. Hence Sarepta soon became a seat of manufactures of all sorts, and an industrial school for the surrounding country, and Catherine's intentions were realised.
As for the brethren themselves, the establishment of an industrial town in a land so remote and so destitute of resources and markets, was for them but a secondary object. Their chief aim was the conversion of the Kalmucks, to accomplish which they thought rightly that it was indispensable to have a permanent settlement among those people. All their proselytising efforts, however, remained fruitless; the Kalmucks were deaf to their instruction. It was not till 1820 that they succeeded in converting a few families, and inducing them to receive baptism. But now the Russian clergy interposed, and insisted on the converts being baptised according to the Greek rite, and finally, all the Moravian missions were suppressed. Ever since then Sarepta has been a purely manufacturing town.
The colony of Sarepta endured great calamities in the beginning. In 1771, the period of the famous emigration of the Kalmucks, the brethren had a narrow escape of being carried into captivity, and were saved only by the mildness of the winter, which prevented their enemies from crossing the Volga and joining the great horde. The Cossack Pougatchef ravaged the whole country in 1773, and the colonists, 200 in number, including women, were obliged to retreat to Astrakhan. The defeat of the rebel shortly afterwards enabled them to return home. Their town had been destroyed, but they were not disheartened, and it soon rose again from its ruins. A whole street was burned down in Sarepta in 1812, and in the same year they lost their warehouses in Moscow, containing an immense stock of goods, in the great conflagration. But the most terrible disaster was that of 1823, when two-thirds of the colony and the largest establishments were reduced to ashes; the loss was estimated at upwards of 40,000_l._ The Emperor Alexander and the Moravian Association afforded the poor colonists generous aid, but they could never restore the old prosperity of Sarepta.
All these heavy blows falling successively on the unfortunate community, did not, however, prevent the development of its industry. Great activity prevailed in its very various manufactories down to the beginning of the present century, and their productions continued to be in request in all parts of Russia. Some of the brethren established in the great towns of the empire were the active and honest correspondents of the Volga colonists. The silks and cottons of Sarepta were so successful that the weavers of that town formed establishments at their own cost among the German colonies of the government of Saratof.[17] But all these elements of wealth were annihilated by the new customs' regulations; most of the manufactories were closed; as for the rest, with one or two exceptions, being obliged to confine themselves to the production of a small number of articles, they can only subsist by dint of great economy and skill. The difficulty, too, of procuring workmen makes labour extremely dear in Sarepta; and besides this the colonists instead of importing the raw materials direct from the foreigner, are obliged to purchase them in the markets of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The decrease in the waters of the Sarpa has also been disastrous to the trade of Sarepta. The brethren had set up a great number of saw and other mills on the banks, and these brought them large profits; but the want of water caused them all to be abandoned in 1800. In noticing this continual struggle of man against nature and events, we cannot but pay the tribute of our admiration to those intrepid colonists, who, on the furthest verge of Europe, in the arid steppes of the Volga, have never suffered themselves to be overcome by their mischances, but have always found fresh resources in their own energy and perseverance.
The manufacture of mustard is at present the most important branch of business in Sarepta, producing nearly 16,000 kilogrammes yearly, besides 4800 kilogrammes of oil. This trade is not unimportant to the neighbouring villages, since it uses upon an average every year 160,000 kilogrammes of mustard seed, for which the manufacturer pays the peasant at the rate of 1.60 rubles the poud or thirty-three pounds.
The other trades that are still carried on with some degree of success are the manufactures of silk and cotton tissues, stockings and caps, tobacco and tanned leather, but these are all upon a greatly reduced scale and at a greatly diminished rate of profit. There is also a very clever optician in Sarepta, and there are several confectioners who travel to Moscow. The colony possesses also warehouses of manufactured goods, and offers almost all the resources and conveniences of a good European town.
Agriculture can only be a secondary matter in the colony; of the 17,000 deciatines of land possessed by it 2000 are quite unfit for cultivation, 10,000 are salt, and only 4000 are really good. There is, however, a little village named Schoenbrunn, not far from the town, in which there are some families engaged in agriculture and cattle rearing. Merino sheep have not done well with them hitherto. They had a large stock some years ago, but it dwindled away either from mismanagement, or from the severity of the climate, and at present does not exceed 1000 head.
The brethren possess also numerous gardens along the Sarpa, irrigated by water wheels, and producing all sorts of fruits and plants, but chiefly tobacco, and latterly indigo, which will no doubt become of great importance to the colony.
The little town of Sarepta has not changed much within the last eighty years: its buildings still present the same appearance as they did some years after the foundation of the colony; but the great industrial movements of former times have deserted it, and its streets are become lonely and silent. The fountain still flows on the same spot, and is still shaded by the same trees; but the blackened walls of the two finest manufactories, burnt down in the terrible fire of 1823, and which the colonists have never been able to rebuild, make a singularly painful impression on the beholder, and tell too plainly that in spite of their courage and industry, events have been too strong for the Moravians. All travellers who visit Sarepta, and have an opportunity of appreciating the worth of its inhabitants, will certainly desire from their hearts a return of prosperity to this interesting colony: unhappily it is not probable that these wishes will be very speedily realised.
The Moravian community has augmented but little since 1769; for in 1837 it comprised but 380 souls, viz., 160 men and 220 women; and even of these, only one half were natives of Sarepta, the remainder being immigrants from abroad. Many causes combine to keep down the population. In the first place, no colonist is allowed to marry, until he can prove the sufficiency of his means; both men and women, therefore, marry late in life, and large families are extremely rare. Again, no brother can marry, if his doing so would cause any detriment to another; and all those who, by their misconduct, in any degree disturb the order and tranquillity of the colony, are banished and put out of the association. A sort of passport is given them for the government of Saratof, and then they are at liberty either to enrol themselves as government colonists, or to enjoy their privileges as foreigners. Lastly, after the great fire of 1823, many of the brethren, discouraged by the loss of their all, left Sarepta, and went to reside elsewhere. All these reasons, sufficiently account for the stationary condition of the population. Of strangers to the association, there are in Sarepta, thirty families of work people from the German colonies of Saratof, forty Russians, and twenty Tatars; some fifty Kalmuck kibitkas (tents) supply labourers for the gardens and for other works.
There are now fifty-six stone and 136 wooden houses in Sarepta, and outside it, one stone and forty-nine wooden. Its public buildings, are a church, with an organ and a belfry, and three large workhouses for bachelors, widows, and girls. These serve at the same time as asylums for orphans, and for all persons who have no families. There are also schools for the young of both sexes, in which the course of instruction is rather extensive, and includes the German, Russian, and French languages, history, geography, and elementary mathematics.
At first, Sarepta was surrounded with ditches and ramparts, supplied with artillery and defended by a detachment of Cossacks; but these military displays have long disappeared, and the worthy Moravians are left alone to their own peaceful pursuits. In describing this interesting colony, we must not forget its numerous and delicious fountains. Every street, every house has its own, the water being conveyed by wooden pipes underground into a common reservoir, whence it is distributed to all parts. Nor will it be without a keen feeling of satisfaction that the weary traveller will stop at the Sarepta hotel, where he will find a good bed and a good table, excellent wine, and all the comforts he can desire.
The Moravian brethren of Sarepta justly enjoy much more extensive privileges than all the other colonists of Russia: they pay to the crown but a slight tax per deciatine of land; and they have the right of trading in all parts of the empire and to foreign parts, as first guild merchants without paying any dues. They have their own perfectly separate administration, and all litigated affairs among them are settled by themselves, without the interference of any Russian tribunal: if any disputes arise between them and their neighbours, they have recourse to the general committee of the German colonies of Saratof, or in matters of weight, to the ministry in St. Petersburg, through one of their brethren, who resides there as their agent. In cases of murder alone, they deliver over the criminal to the Russian authorities. Banishment is usually the sentence pronounced for other offences by the tribunal of the association, which consists of a mayor and two assistants, elected by the community, and who act also as administrators of the colony, and have under their orders an officer, who is responsible for all things pertaining to the town and country police. The public revenue is 20,000 rubles, produced by the rent of the fisheries and by special taxes; this money is spent in keeping up the public buildings, the schools, workhouses, &c.
The habits of these colonists, their amount of education, and their religious principles, make a marked distinction between them and all the other Germans in Russia. We have seen few sectarians whose religious views are characterised by so much sound sense. While discharging their duties with the most scrupulous exactness, they avail themselves of the good things granted them by Providence, live in a liberal and commodious manner, and surround themselves with all that can render life easy and agreeable. What struck us most of all, was to find invariably in the mere workman as well as in the wealthy manufacturer, a well-bred, well-informed man, of elegant manners and appearance, and engaging conversation. We spent but a few days in the colony, but our knowledge of the German language, enabled us quickly to acquire the friendship of the principal inhabitants; and when we left the town, our carriage was surrounded by a great number of those worthy people who came to bid us a last farewell, and to wish us a pleasant journey through the wild steppes of the Kalmucks.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The German colonies of the government of Saratof consist of 102 villages, with a population of 81,271; in 1820 they produced 242,830 hectolitres of wheat, worth 555,263 paper rubles, and tobacco to the value of 260,485.
Chapter XIX
FIRST KALMUCK ENCAMPMENTS--THE VOLGA--ASTRAKHAN--VISIT TO A KALMUCK PRINCE--MUSIC, DANCING, COSTUME, &c.--EQUESTRIAN FEATS--RELIGIOUS CEREMONY--POETRY.
At eight in the evening we left Sarepta, delighted in the highest degree with the good Moravian brethren, and the cordial hospitality they had shown us.
At some distance from the colony, a dull white line, scarcely distinguishable through the gloom, announced the presence of the Volga. We followed its course all night, catching a glimpse of it from time to time by the faint glimmering of the stars, and by numerous lights along its banks; these were fishermen's lanterns. There was an originality in the whole region that strongly impressed our imaginations. Those numerous lights, flitting every moment from place to place, were like the will o' the wisp that beguiles the benighted traveller; and then the Kalmuck encampments with their black masses that seemed to glide over the surface of the steppe; the darkness of the night; the speed with which our troika bore us over the boundless plain; the shrill tinklings of the horse bells, and above all, the thought that we were in the land of the Kalmucks, wrought us up to a state of nervous excitement that made us see every thing in the hues of fancy.
At daybreak, our eyes were bent eagerly on the Volga, that gleamed in the colours of the morning sky. From the plateau where we were, we could see the whole country, and it may easily be conceived with what admiration we gazed on the calm majestic stream, and its multitude of islands clothed with alders and aspens. On the other side of the river, the steppes where the Khirgises and Kalmucks encamp, stretched away as far as the eye could reach, till bounded by a horizon as even as that of the ocean. It would have been difficult to conceive a more majestic spectacle, or one more in harmony with the ideas evoked by the Volga, to which its course of more than six hundred leagues assigns the foremost rank among the great rivers of Europe.
The post-road, which skirts the river as far as Astrakhan, is difficult, and often dangerous. Our driver was constantly turning his horses into the water, to prevent their sinking in a soil that undulates like the sea with every breath of wind. At intervals we encountered Cossack villages almost buried under sandy billows, and many cabins entirely abandoned. This encroachment of the sands, which increases every year in extent, will soon change the already dreary banks of the Volga into a real desert. No one can behold the sterility and desolation of these regions, without marvelling at the patience with which the Cossacks endure a visitation that from year to year drives them from their cabins, and compels them to build new ones. For a length of more than sixty versts, the traveller finds his route shut in between the bed of the river, and moving hills of sand, whose dead monotony has a most depressing effect on the spirits. It is still worse at night, for then he seems surrounded with perils. No wonder if fear possesses him when he thinks that a plundering nomade horde may be lying in ambush behind those defiles which the darkness renders still more menacing; the Cossack posts, however, which he meets from time to time along his road, contribute greatly to quiet his apprehensions.
These Cossacks were originally from the Don, and were sent by the government to defend the frontiers of the Volga against the incursions of the nomades. Settling with their families, they founded several villages, and afterwards peopled Samara, Saratof, and other towns. There remains of these colonists only a military population, whose duty is limited to watching the movements of the Khirgises from a distance, and protecting travellers. The soil affords them no means of practising agriculture, but they supply their wants by fishing.
Since our departure from Sarepta, we were much surprised to find on this little frequented route much better horses than are met with on the main post-roads; the stations too seemed larger, more commodious and elegant, and every thing about them betokened attentive care on the part of the government.
As we approached Astrakhan, the sand-hills diminished insensibly in height, until they no longer confined the view. All this part of the steppe is bare of wood, and the salt sandy waste is only spotted here and there with pools of water and patches of wormwood. No sound is heard but the shrill cries of the petrels and wild geese that haunt the edges of the pools. Here and there only we encountered numerous herds of camels going to drink the clear water of the Volga, or wandering among the Kalmuck kibitkas scattered over the steppes.
At the last station but one, we were startled from our breakfast by the sound of military music, which for a moment threw the whole house into a state of revolution. We were ourselves very much puzzled to know what it meant, and jumping up from table we ran and saw--what? A steamer, no less, puffing and smoking, and lashing the astonished waters of the calm Volga into foam. Gay flags flaunted over its deck, which was crowded with passengers, and whence proceeded the sounds that had so surprised us. It passed before us, I will not say proudly, but very clumsily, by no means skimming along the water like a swallow.
When we saw the crowded state of the deck, a thought struck us that the matter in some degree concerned ourselves, for as the steamer was from Astrakhan, it was to be presumed that it carried several persons we had expected to see there. But our conjectures fell short of the reality, and our consternation was extreme, when the postmaster told us that the boat was conveying all the good society of Astrakhan on a visit to a Kalmuck prince, whose custom it was to give splendid entertainments at that season of the year. What made the thing still more vexatious, was, that many persons had already talked to us about the said prince, and strongly recommended us to go and see him.
There could not have been a more favourable opportunity for indulging our curiosity; but we were compelled to forego it for want of a podoroshni[18] entitling us to have horses on our way back. The Russians are such rigid sticklers for forms, that nothing but strong motives of interest can make them swerve from the letter of their instructions. Now it happened by a singular piece of ill-luck that our postmaster was an honest man after his fashion; that is to say, he would not depart a hair's breadth from his regulations to please any one. His stupid obstinacy was proof against all solicitations and bribes, and we gave up the tempting project of visiting the prince, whose palace we had passed a few hours before, about forty versts from the station.
Our best course under the circumstances would have been to hail the steamer, and go on board of it, but we did not think of this until we had lost much time with the postmaster, and then it was too late to overtake the steamer, notwithstanding its slow rate of moving. When we afterwards related our mischances to the governor of Astrakhan, he blamed us much for not having at once thought of so simple an expedient.
About four o'clock P.M. the same day, we came in sight of Astrakhan. I cannot describe our sensations when from a large boat in which we embarked, we beheld the fine panorama of the city, its churches, cupolas, and ruined forts gradually coming forth to the view. Situated in an island of the Volga, its environs are not covered like those of most great cities, with villages and cultivated fields: no, it stands alone, surrounded by water and sand, proud of its sovereignty over the noble river, and of the name of Star of the Desert, with which the poetic imagination of the Orientals has graced it.
We had great difficulty in finding a lodging after we had landed, and though assisted by a police officer, we spent more than two hours in wandering from place to place, everywhere meeting with refusals. We were about cutting short our perplexities by taking refuge in a Persian caravanserai, when chance came to our aid. A Polish lady whom we fell in with, offered us the accommodation of her house, and with such good grace, that we could not hesitate to accept her civility. Besides, our travels in Russia had accustomed us to the sympathy with which every thing French is greeted by the Poles. The last political events have not yet been able to weaken their good will towards us; they regard us as brethren, and are ready to prove it on all occasions.
Except some crown buildings occupied by the employes, there is nothing in Astrakhan to remind us of its being under foreign sway. The town has completely preserved the Asiatic physiognomy it owes to its climate, its past history, and its diversified population. It is built partly on a hill, partly on the plain, and several of its oldest portions stand on low spots intersected with marshes, and are exposed to very unwholesome exhalations during the summer, after the river floods. A canal with quays runs through its whole length.
My husband's first proceeding after a hurried installation in our new quarters, was to call on M. Fadier, the curator-general of the Kalmucks, and try to obtain a podoroshni as quickly as possible. He came back in an hour, and told me that we were to start that evening in a boat belonging to the admiralty, which was placed at our disposal. The governor, M. Fadier, the port-admiral, and all the superior society of the place were visiting the prince, as we had before been told; but Madame Fadier had been kept at home by indisposition, and that lady, whose name will frequently appear in our reminiscences of Astrakhan, obligingly removed all our difficulties.
We embarked in the evening in the boat, with a crew of six stout Kalmuck rowers and a Tatta pilot. We expected to arrive at the prince's in the morning; but by some unaccountable chance I was seized all at once with a dread that obliged us to halt, in spite of our eager desire to reach our journey's end. The night was very dark, and the river, the waves of which made our boat reel, seemed to me boundless; yet all this was not enough to account for the insurmountable terror that took hold of me so capriciously. Many sea-voyages and long excursions on the Bosphorus in those light caiques that threaten to upset with the slightest movement, ought to have seasoned me against such emotions; but fear is a sentiment that cannot reason, and that comes upon us unawares, without any real danger to justify it. I must add, however, in palliation of my conduct, that the frequent lightning and the heaviness of the atmosphere foretold a storm; and no doubt had something to do with the nervous state in which I found myself.
Be this as it may, I could not rest until I had heard my husband give orders to put back into port, and the sequel proved that this was really the best thing we could do. The night was horrible: one of those terrific squalls that are so frequent and so dangerous on the Volga, came on soon after we landed, and made me bless that terror of which I was at first ashamed, and which I was now tempted to regard as a secret presentiment of the danger that threatened us.
At sunrise next day we set out by the post, and travelled till evening along that river on which I had been so much agitated. Its appearance in the fresh, calm morning was little in accordance with my terror on the preceding day. The weather showed that brilliancy that always follows a storm in southern lands, and our spirits were such as to make our little trip exceedingly agreeable. The postmaster who had annoyed us so much the preceding day, could not help showing great surprise at our reappearance. He examined our new podoroshni with scrupulous care, and having satisfied himself that it was quite as it ought to be, he was suddenly seized with great respect for us. The quickness with which we had obtained the paper, was plain proof to him that we were persons of importance.
We left our post-carriage in the evening, and embarked; for we had still a dozen versts to travel on the river before reaching the prince's; but all the phantoms of the previous night had fled before the bright sun, and I stepped gaily into the boat thinking only of the pleasure of a long row over the limpid waves of the Volga. But now a last vexation befel us; one would have fancied some evil genius was amusing himself with baffling all our arrangements, merely for the purpose of preventing our paying that visit on which we were so eagerly bent.
Our whole desire was to arrive at the prince's before the departure of the steamer; for as for the fetes, we had already given up all thought of them. From what Madame Fadier had told us we were quite at ease, and never doubted but that we should find the whole company assembled in the Kalmuck palace. Fancy our dismay then, when our boatman suddenly called out 'the steamer!' pointing at the same time to a light smoke that rose above the trees. I am not very prone to superstition, but this obvious fatality was too much for my philosophy. Here was the best part of the pleasure we had anticipated from this unlucky trip, struck from us at one blow, and that at the very moment when we flattered ourselves we had overcome all obstacles! the steamer passed proudly and triumphantly at a little distance from us, with its joyous music that seemed to insult our disappointment, and our poor little boat, tossed about like a nutshell by the surge of the confounded vessel, had not even the honour of being seen at first. Some one at last condescended to notice us; a telescope was pointed in our direction, and we afterwards learned that our appearance gave rise to a multitude of conjectures, which, of course, were solved only in Astrakhan.
Nothing remained for us but to bear our fate with philosophical composure; and we did so with the confident belief that luck, which had hitherto run so decidedly against us, must soon take a turn in our favour. Forgetting, therefore, the steamboat, its music, and its brilliant company, we applied all our attention to the spectacle before us, which was certainly much better worth seeing than the prosaic steamer.
The little island belonging to Prince Tumene stands alone in the middle of the river. From a distance it looks like a nest of verdure resting on the waves, and waiting only a breath of wind to send it floating down the rapid course of the Volga; but, as you advance, the land unfolds before you, the trees form themselves into groups, and the prince's palace displays a portion of its white facade, and the open galleries of its turrets. Every object assumes a more decided and more picturesque form, and stands out in clear relief, from the cupola of the mysterious pagoda which you see towering above the trees, to the humble kibitka glittering in the magic tints of sunset. The landscape, as it presented itself successively to our eyes, with the unruffled mirror of the Volga for its framework, wore a calm, but strange and profoundly melancholy character. It was like nothing we had ever seen before; it was a new world which fancy might people as it pleased; one of those mysterious isles one dreams of at fifteen after reading the "Arabian Nights;" a thing, in short, such as crosses the traveller's path but once in all his wanderings, and which we enjoyed with all the zest of unexpected pleasure. But we were soon called back from all these charming phantoms of the imagination to the realities of life? we were arrived. Our boatman moored his little craft in a clump of thornbroom; and whilst my husband proceeded to the palace with his interpreter, I remained in the boat, divided between the pleasure I anticipated from the extraordinary things to be seen in a Kalmuck palace, and the involuntary apprehension awakened in me by all the incidents of this visit.
The latter feeling did not last long. Not many minutes had elapsed after the departure of my companions, when I saw them returning with a young man, who was presented to me as one of the princes Tumene. It was with equal elegance and good breeding he introduced me to the palace, where every step brought me some new surprise. I was quite unprepared for what I saw; and really in passing through two salons which united the most finished display of European taste with the gorgeousness of Asia, on being suddenly accosted by a young lady who welcomed me in excellent French, I felt such a thrill of delight, that I could only answer by embracing her heartily! In this manner an acquaintance is quickly made.
The room where we took tea was soon filled with Russian and Cossack officers, guests of the prince's, and thus assumed a European aspect which we had not at all expected after the departure of the steamer. But was this what we had come to see? was it to look at Russian officers, and articles of furniture of well known fashion, to take caravan tea off a silver tray, and talk French, that we had left Astrakhan? These reflections soon yielded to the secret pleasure of meeting the image of Europe even among the Kalmucks, and being able without the aid of a dragoman to testify to the charming Polish lady who did the honours of the drawing-room, the gratification her presence afforded us. The old Prince Tumene, the head of the family, joined us by and by, and thanked us with the most exquisite politeness for our obliging visit.
After the first civilities were over, I was conducted to a very handsome chamber, with windows opening on a large verandah. I found in it a toilette apparatus in silver, very elegant furniture, and many objects both rare and precious. My surprise augmented continually as I beheld this aristocratic sumptuousness. In vain I looked for any thing that could remind me of the Kalmucks; nothing around me had a tinge of couleur locale; all seemed rather to bespeak the abode of a rich Asiatic nabob; and with a little effort of imagination, I might easily have fancied myself transported into the marvellous world of the fairies, as I beheld that magnificent palace encircled with water, with its exterior fretted all over with balconies and fantastic ornaments, and its interior all filled with velvets, tapestries, and crystals, as though the touch of a wand had made all these wonders start from the bosom of the Volga! And what completed the illusion was the thought that the author of these prodigies was a Kalmuck prince, a chief of those half-savage tribes that wander over the sandy plains of the Caspian Sea, a worshipper of the Grand Lama, a believer in the metempsychosis; in short, one of those beings whose existence seems to us almost fabulous, such a host of mysterious legends do their names awaken in the mind.
Madame Zakarevitch soon made me acquainted with all I wished to know respecting the princes Tumene and herself. Her husband, who had long been curator of the Kalmucks, died some years ago, a victim to the integrity with which he discharged his office. The employes, enraged at not being able to rob at their ease, combined together to have him brought to trial and persecuted him to his last moment with their base intrigues. His wife, who has all the impassioned character of the Poles, has ever since been actively engaged in vindication of his memory, devoting time, money, and toilsome journeys, with admirable perseverance to that sacred task. A friendship of long standing subsists between her and Prince Tumene, with whose daughter and a lady companion she usually passes part of the summer.
Prince Tumene is the wealthiest and most influential of all the Kalmuck chiefs. In 1815 he raised a regiment at his own expense, and led it to Paris, for which meritorious service he was rewarded with numerous decorations. He has now the rank of colonel, and he was the first of this nomade people who exchanged his kibitka for an European dwelling. Absolute master in his own family (among the Kalmucks the same respect is paid to the eldest brother as to the father), he employs his authority only for the good of those around him. He possesses about a million deciatines of land, and several hundred families, from which he derives a considerable revenue. His race, which belongs to the tribe of the Koshots, is one of the most ancient and respected among the Kalmucks. Repeatedly tried by severe afflictions, his mind has taken an exclusively religious bent, and the superstitious practices to which he devotes himself give him a great reputation for sanctity among his countrymen. An isolated pavilion at some distance from the palace is his habitual abode, where he passes his life in prayer and religious conference with the most celebrated priests of the country. No one but these latter is allowed admission into his mysterious sanctuary; even his brothers have never entered it. This is assuredly a singular mode of existence, especially if we compare it with that which he might lead amidst the splendour and conveniences with which he has embellished his palace, and which betoken a cast of thought far superior to what we should expect to find in a Kalmuck. This voluntary sacrifice of earthly delights, this asceticism caused by moral sufferings, strikingly reminds us of Christianity and the origin of our religious orders. Like the most fervent Catholics, this votary of Lama seeks in solitude, prayer, austerity, and the hope of another life, consolations which all his fortune is powerless to afford him! Is not this the history of many a Trappist or Carthusian?
The position of the palace is exquisitely chosen, and shows a sense of the beautiful as developed as that of the most civilised nations. It is built in the Chinese style, and is prettily seated on the gentle slope of a hill about a hundred feet from the Volga. Its numerous galleries afford views over every part of the isle, and the imposing surface of the river. From one of the angles the eye looks down on a mass of foliage, through which glitter the cupola and golden ball of the pagoda. Beautiful meadows, dotted over with clumps of trees, and fields in high cultivation, unfold their carpets of verdure on the left of the palace, and form different landscapes which the eye can take in at once. The whole is enlivened by the presence of Kalmuck horsemen, camels wandering here and there through the rich pastures, and officers conveying the chief's orders from tent to tent. It is a beautiful spectacle, various in its details, and no less harmonious in its assemblage.
After learning the reasons why we had not arrived two days sooner, Madame Zakarevitch very agreeably surprised us with the assurance that it was the prince's intention to have the fetes repeated for us. Couriers had already been despatched to bring back the priests who had been engaged in the solemnities of the occasion, in order that we might have an opportunity of seeing their religious ceremonies. The day being now far advanced, we spent the remainder of it in visiting the palace in detail, and resting from the fatigues of our journey.
At an early hour next day, Madame Zakarevitch came to accompany us to the prince's sister-in-law, who, during the fine season, resides in the kibitka in preference to the palace. Nothing could be more agreeable to us than this proposal. At last then I was about to see Kalmuck manners and customs without any foreign admixture. On the way I learned that the princess was renowned among her people for extreme beauty and accomplishments, besides many other details which contributed further to augment my curiosity. We formed a tolerably large party when we reached her tent, and as she had been informed of our intended visit, we enjoyed, on entering, a spectacle that far surpassed our anticipations. When the curtain at the doorway of the kibitka was raised, we found ourselves in a rather spacious room, lighted from above, and hung with red damask, the reflection from which shed a glowing tint on every object; the floor was covered with a rich Turkey carpet, and the air was loaded with perfumes. In this balmy atmosphere and crimson light we perceived the princess seated on a low platform at the further end of the tent, dressed in glistening robes, and as motionless as an idol. Some twenty women in full dress, sitting on their heels, formed a strange and parti-coloured circle round her. It was like nothing I could compare it to but an opera scene suddenly got up on the banks of the Volga. When the princess had allowed us time enough to admire her, she slowly descended the steps of the platform, approached us with dignity, took me by the hand, embraced me affectionately, and led me to the place she had just left. She did the same by Madame Zakarevitch and her daughter, and then graciously saluting the persons who accompanied us, she motioned them to be seated on a large divan opposite the platform. No mistress of a house in Paris could have done better. When every one had found a place, she sat down beside me, and through the medium of an Armenian, who spoke Russian and Kalmuck extremely well, she made me a thousand compliments, that gave me a very high opinion of her capacity. With the Armenian's assistance we were able to put many questions to each other, and notwithstanding the awkwardness of being obliged to have recourse to an interpreter, the conversation was far from growing languid, so eager was the princess for information of every kind. The Armenian, who was a merry soul, constituted himself, of his own authority, grand master of the ceremonies, and commenced his functions by advising the princess to give orders for the opening of the ball. Immediately upon a sign from the latter, one of the ladies of honour rose and performed a few steps, turning slowly upon herself; whilst another, who remained seated, drew forth from a balalaika (an Oriental guitar) some melancholy sounds, by no means appropriate to the occasion. Nor were the attitudes and movements of her companion more accordant with our notions of dancing. They formed a pantomime, the meaning of which I could not ascertain, but which, by its languishing monotony, expressed any thing but pleasure or gaiety. The young figurante frequently stretched out her arms and knelt down as if to invoke some invisible being. The performance lasted a considerable time, during which I had full opportunity to scrutinise the princess, and saw good reason to justify the high renown in which her beauty was held among her own people. Her figure is imposing, and extremely well-proportioned, as far as her numerous garments allowed me to judge. Her mouth, finely arched and adorned with beautiful teeth, her countenance, expressive of great sweetness, her skin, somewhat brown, but remarkably delicate, would entitle her to be thought a very handsome woman, even in France, if the outline of her face and the arrangement of her features were only a trifle less Kalmuck. Nevertheless, in spite of the obliquity of her eyes and the prominence of her cheek-bones, she would still find many an admirer, not in Kalmuckia alone, but all the world over. Her looks convey an expression of the utmost gentleness and good-nature, and like all the women of her race, she has an air of caressing humility, which makes her appearance still more winning.
Now for her costume. Over a very rich robe of Persian stuff, laced all over with silver, she wore a light silk tunic, reaching only to the knee and open in front. The high corsage was quite flat, and glittered with silver embroidery and fine pearls that covered all the seams. Round her neck she had a white cambric habit shirt, the shape of which seemed to me like that of a man's shirt collar. It was fastened in front by a diamond button. Her very thick, deep black hair fell over her bosom in two magnificent tresses of remarkable length. A yellow cap, edged with rich fur, and resembling in shape the square cap of a French judge, was set jauntily on the crown of her head. But what surprised me most in her costume was an embroidered cambric handkerchief and a pair of black mittens. Thus, it appears, the productions of our workshops find their way even to the toilette of a great Kalmuck lady. Among the princess's ornaments I must not forget to enumerate a large gold chain, which, after being wound round her beautiful tresses, fell over her bosom, passing on its way through her gold earrings. Her whole attire, such as I have described it, looked much less barbarous than I had expected. The ladies of honour, though less richly clad, wore robes and caps of the same form; only they had not advanced so far as to wear mittens.
The dancing lady, after figuring for half an hour, went and touched the shoulder of one of her companions, who took her place, and began the same figures over again. When she had done, the Armenian urged the princess that her daughter, who until then had kept herself concealed behind a curtain, should also give a specimen of her skill; but there was a difficulty in the case. No lady of honour had a right to touch her, and this formality was indispensable according to established usage. Not to be baffled by this obstacle, the Armenian sprang gaily into the middle of the circle, and began to dance in so original a manner, that every one enthusiastically applauded. Having thus satisfied the exigency of Kalmuck etiquette, he stepped up to the curtain and laid his finger lightly on the shoulder of the young lady, who could not refuse an invitation thus made in all due form. Her dancing appeared to us less wearisome than that of the ladies of honour, thanks to her pretty face and her timid and languishing attitudes. She in her turn touched her brother, a handsome lad of fifteen, dressed in the Cossack costume, who appeared exceedingly mortified at being obliged to put a Kalmuck cap on his head, in order to exhibit the dance in all its nationality. Twice he dashed his cap on the ground with a most comical air of vexation; but his mother rigidly insisted on his putting it on again.
The dancing of the men is as imperious and animated as that of the women is tame and monotonous; the spirit of domination displays itself in all their gestures, in the bold expression of their looks and their noble bearing. It would be impossible for me to describe all the evolutions the young prince went through with equal grace and rapidity. The elasticity of his limbs was as remarkable as the perfect measure observed in his complicated steps.
After the ball came the concert. The women played one after the other on the balalaika, and then sang in chorus. But there is as little variety in their music as in their dancing. At last we were presented with different kinds of koumis and sweetmeats on large silver trays.
When we came out from the kibitka, the princess's brother-in-law took us to a herd of wild horses, where one of the most extraordinary scenes awaited us. The moment we were perceived, five or six mounted men, armed with long lassoes, rushed into the middle of the taboun (herd of horses), keeping their eyes constantly fixed on the young prince, who was to point out the animal they should seize. The signal being given, they instantly galloped forward and noosed a young horse with a long dishevelled mane, whose dilated eyes and smoking nostrils betokened inexpressible terror. A lightly-clad Kalmuck, who followed them on foot, immediately sprang upon the stallion, cut the thongs that were throttling him, and engaged with him in an incredible contest of daring and agility. It would be impossible, I think, for any spectacle more vividly to affect the mind than that which now met our eyes. Sometimes the rider and his horse rolled together on the grass; sometimes they shot through the air with the speed of an arrow, and then stopped abruptly, as if a wall had all at once risen up before them. On a sudden the furious animal would crawl on its belly, or rear in a manner that made us shriek with terror, then plunging forward again in his mad gallop he would dash through the taboun, and endeavour in every possible way to shake off his novel burden.
But this exercise, violent and dangerous as it appeared to us, seemed but sport to the Kalmuck, whose body followed all the movements of the animal with so much suppleness, that one would have fancied that the same thought possessed both bodies. The sweat poured in foaming streams from the stallion's flanks, and he trembled in every limb. As for the rider, his coolness would have put to shame the most accomplished horsemen in Europe. In the most critical moments he still found himself at liberty to wave his arms in token of triumph; and in spite of the indomitable humour of his steed, he had sufficient command over it to keep it almost always within the circle of our vision. At a signal from the prince, two horsemen, who had kept as close as possible to the daring centaur, seized him with amazing quickness, and galloped away with him before we had time to comprehend this new manoeuvre. The horse, for a moment stupefied, soon made off at full speed, and was lost in the midst of the herd. These performances were repeated several times without a single rider suffering himself to be thrown.
But what was our amazement when we saw a boy of ten years come forward to undertake the same exploit! They selected for him a young white stallion of great size, whose fiery bounds and desperate efforts to break his bonds, indicated a most violent temper.
I will not attempt to depict our intense emotions during this new conflict. This child, who, like the other riders, had only the horse's mane to cling to, afforded an example of the power of reasoning over instinct and brute force. For some minutes he maintained his difficult position with heroic intrepidity. At last, to our great relief, a horseman rode up to him, caught him up in his outstretched arm, and threw him on the croup behind him.
The Kalmucks, as the reader will perceive, are excellent horsemen, and are accustomed from their childhood to subdue the wildest horses. The exercise we had witnessed is one of their greatest amusements: it is even practised by the women, and we have frequently seen them vying with each other in feats of equestrian daring.
The lateness of the hour recalled us to the palace where a splendid dinner was prepared for us. Two large tables were laid in two adjoining rooms, and at the head of each sat one of the princes. We took our places at that of the elder brother, who did the honours in the most finished style.
The cookery, which was half Russian, half French, left us nothing to desire as regarded the choice or the savour of the dishes. Every thing was served up in silver, and the wines of France and Spain, champagne especially, were supplied in princely profusion. Many toasts were given, foremost among which were those in honour of the Emperor of Russia and the King of the French.
I remarked with much surprise, that during the whole dinner, the princess seemed very ill at ease in presence of her brother-in-law; she did not sit down until he had desired her to do so, and her whole demeanour manifested her profound respect for the head of her family. Her husband, the prince's younger brother, had been absent upwards of two months. The repast was very lengthened and great animation prevailed; whilst for our parts, we could hardly reconcile to our minds the idea that the giver of so sumptuous and so well-appointed an entertainment was a Kalmuck. The prince put many questions to us about France, and talked with enthusiasm of his residence in our country, and the agreeable acquaintances he had made there. Though he did not much make our current politics his study, he was not ignorant of our last revolution, and he expressed great admiration for Louis Philippe.
After dinner we went in his carriage to visit the mysterious pagoda which had so much excited our curiosity.
The moment we set foot on the threshold of the temple, our ears were assailed with a charivari, compared with which a score or two of great bells set in motion promiscuously, would have been harmony itself. It almost deprived us of the power of perceiving what was going on around us. The noise was so piercing, discordant, and savage that we were completely stupified, and there was no possibility of exchanging a word.
The perpetrators of this terrible uproar, in other words the musicians, were arranged in two parallel lines facing each other; at their head, in the direction of the altar, the high-priest knelt quite motionless on a rich Persian carpet, and behind them towards the entrance stood the ghepki, or master of the ceremonies, dressed in a scarlet robe and a deep yellow hood, and having in his hand a long staff, the emblem, no doubt, of his dignity. The other priests, all kneeling as well as the musicians, and looking like grotesque Chinese in their features and attitudes, wore dresses of glaring colours, loaded with gold and silver brocade, consisting of wide tunics, with open sleeves, and a sort of mitre with several broad points. Their head-dress somewhat resembled that of the ancient Peruvians, except that instead of feathers they had plates covered with religious paintings, besides which there rose from the centre a long straight tuft of black silk, tied up so as to form a series of little balls, diminishing from the base to the summit. Below, this tuft spread out into several tresses which fell down on the shoulders. But what surprised us most of all were the musical instruments. Besides enormous timbrels and the Chinese tamtam, there were large sea-shells used as horns, and two huge tubes, three or four yards long, and each supported on two props. My husband ineffectually endeavoured to sound these trumpets; none but the stentorian lungs of the vigorous Mandschis could give them breath. If there is neither tune, nor harmony, nor method in the religious music of the Kalmucks, by way of amends for this every one makes as much noise as he can in his own way and according to the strength of his lungs. The concert began by a jingling of little bells, then the timbrels and tamtams struck up, and lastly, after the shrill squeakings of the shells, the two great trumpets began to bellow, and made all the windows of the temple shake. It would be impossible for me to depict all the oddity of this ceremony. Now indeed we felt that we were thousands of leagues away from Europe, in the heart of Asia, in a pagoda of the Grand Dalai Lama of Thibet.
The temple, lighted by a row of large windows, is adorned with slender columns of stuccoed brickwork, the lightness of which reminds one of the graceful Moorish architecture. A gallery runs all round the dome, which is also remarkable for the extreme delicacy of its workmanship. Tapestries, representing a multitude of good and evil genii, monstrous idols and fabulous animals, cover all parts of the pagoda, and give it an aspect much more grotesque than religious. The veneration of the worshippers of Lama for their images is so great, that we could not approach these mis-shapen gods without covering our mouths with a handkerchief, lest we should profane them with an unhallowed breath.
The priests showed how much they disliked our minute examination of every thing, by the uneasiness with which they continually watched all our movements. Their fear as we afterwards learned, was lest we should take a fancy to purloin some of those mystic images we scrutinised so narrowly; certainly they had good reason to be alarmed, for the will was not wanting on our part. But we were obliged to content ourselves with gazing at them with looks of the most profound respect, consoling ourselves with the hope of having our revenge on a more favourable occasion.
When we returned to the palace, we found the old prince in a little room, of which he is particularly fond, and where he has collected a great quantity of arms and curiosities. Among other things, we admired some Circassian chaskas (sabres), richly adorned with black enamelled silver; Damascus swords, no less valuable for the temper of the blades, than for the rich incrustations of the hilts and scabbards; Florentine pistols of the fifteenth century; a jaspar cup of antique form, purchased for 4000 rubles of a Persian nobleman; Circassian coats of mail, like those of our knights of old, and a thousand other rarities, the artistic worth of which testify the good taste of a prince, whom many persons might consider a barbarian. He also keeps in this cabinet, as a thing of great price, the book in which are inscribed the names of those travellers who visit him. Among the names, most of them aristocratic, we observed those of Baron Humboldt, some English lords, and sundry Russian and German savans.
We finished our soiree with an extemporaneous ball that lasted all night. The Armenian, who first proposed the scheme, had to undertake the business of getting up an orchestra. I know not how he set about it, but in a few minutes he brought us triumphantly a violin, a guitar, and a flageolet. Such instruments among the Kalmucks--is it not really prodigious? We had quickly arranged a soiree dansante, as complete as any drawing-room could exhibit; and the merriment soon became so contagious, that the princess and her daughter, after much hesitation, at last overcame all bashfulness, and bravely threw themselves into a heady gallop, in which, by the by, one of them lost her cap. The wondering and delighted princess, stuck to me for the rest of the night, like my shadow, and incessantly assured me, through the Armenian, that she had never in her life passed so pleasant an evening, and that she would never forget it. She expressed a strong desire to hear me sing, and found the French romances so much to her taste, that I had to promise I would copy out some of them for her. On her part, she gave me two Kalmuck songs of her own composition, and transcribed with her own hand.[19] According to Russian custom, the officers did full justice to the champagne, which was sent round all night at a fearful rate.
We spent the next day in promenades about the island, and in hawking. This sport is a great favourite with the Kalmucks, and they practise it in as grand a style as the chatelains of the middle ages. Prince Tumene has a very well appointed falconry, and his hawks are trained by the same methods as were adopted by our ancestors. The hawk we had that day was a small one, of astonishing spirit. The Kalmuck who held it hoodwinked on his fist had the utmost difficulty in restraining it when its head was uncovered. He let it fly at a magnificent grey heron, which it struck down in less than a minute. Several wild ducks were also killed by it with incredible rapidity.
The succeeding days were filled up with varied and novel amusements; nor can I describe the assiduous efforts of our entertainers, to let us see every particular of their manners and customs that might be interesting to us. Every day some new surprise was adroitly brought forward to delay our departure. But, alas! every thing must have an end in this world, and we felt at last constrained to bid adieu to those brilliant and varied scenes which we found so much to our taste.
On the day fixed for our departure we all breakfasted together, while the final preparations were going on. The party was a sad one, for all were occupied with the same thought. Our host's elegant four-in-hand equipage, lined with white satin, was drawn up before the door, with an escort of fifteen horsemen. There was a large crowd assembled, who looked up eagerly to the large balcony, where we were receiving the stirrup-cup from the old prince. The whole formed a striking and splendid picture. The refinements of western luxury, mixed up with Kalmuck faces and costumes, the officers in brilliant uniforms, the handsome horses champing the bit, and, above all, the noble figure of the old prince waving a last farewell to us from the balcony, left an indelible impression on our memories. Young Tumene put himself at the head of the cavalcade, and continued during all the while he was with us to astonish us with his feats of horsemanship. The day was splendid, and every thing concurred to awaken in us a throng of sensations, such as we shall never, perhaps, experience again.
Madame Zakarevitch and her daughter, whom we had carried off from Prince Tumene, embarked with us, opposite the posting station, in the boat provided for us. On the shore, too, we found our carriages ready to receive us, horses having been ordered by an express sent forward the day before by the prince.
On finding ourselves again on that route which we had twice already traversed within less than twenty-four hours, the recollection of our past annoyances after recurred to us, and we could not help thinking how unwisely many travellers allow themselves to be swayed by what they call inauspicious omens; a person, for instance, with a slight leaning to superstition, would have given up all thoughts of a visit which seemed forbidden by such a run of unlucky accidents, and would have lost the opportunity of seeing the extraordinary things I have endeavoured to describe, and which so much exceeded our expectations.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] A sort of passport licensing you to hire post-horses. You pay a sum for it proportioned to the distance you wish to travel, and the number of horses to your carriage.
[19] Here is a translation of one of these songs, which will certainly not give a high idea of the poetic talents of a Kalmuck princess:--
"Mon cheval roux qui dispute le prix de la course au chameau, bronte l'herbe des champs du Don. Dieu notre seigneur, tu nous feras la grace de nous retrouver dans une autre contree. Et toi charmante herbette agitee par le vent, tu t'etends sur la terre. Et toi, o coeur le plus tendre volant vers ma mere, dis lui: qu'entre deux montagnes et des vallees, dans un vallon uni demeurent cinquante braves qui s'approchent avec courage pour tuer une outarde bien grasse. Et toi, tendre mere nature, sois nous propice."
[It is with much hesitation and doubt, that I venture to translate this incomprehensible translation:--Tr.]
"My bright bay horse, which vies in swiftness with the camel, browses on the grass of the Don. God, our Lord, thou wilt grant us of thy grace to meet in another country. And thou charming little grass shaken by the wind, thou stretchest thyself out on the ground. And thou, O fondest heart, flying to my mother, tell her that between two mountains and valleys, in an even strath, dwell fifty braves, who draw together courageously to kill a very fat bustard. And thou, fond Mother Nature be propitious to us."
Chapter XX
HISTORICAL NOTICE OF ASTRAKHAN--MIXED POPULATION; ARMENIANS, TATARS--SINGULAR RESULT OF A MIXTURE OF RACES--DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN--HINDU RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES--SOCIETY.
The history of Astrakhan is so well known that the reader will no doubt thank us for not recapitulating the various political revolutions that have taken place in the regions of which this town has been for so many ages the brilliant metropolis. After having made part of the empire of the Kaptshak, founded by Batou Khan, and after a long series of intestine commotions, Astrakhan at last became an independent state in the beginning of the fifteenth century. One hundred and fifty years later there broke out between the Russians and the Tatars that obstinate strife which was to end by delivering the country of the tsars from the yoke of its oppressors. In 1554, Ivan the Terrible, partly by treachery, and partly by force of arms, possessed himself of the khanat of the Caspian, and was the first to assume the title of King of Casan and Astrakhan. This valuable conquest was incorporated with the empire, and led to the submission or emigration of all the adjacent tribes. Astrakhan has ever since belonged to Russia; but it soon lost the prosperity that had rendered it so celebrated of yore under the Tatars of the Golden Horde. Fifteen years after the Russian conquest, the Turks directed an expedition against Astrakhan, in concert with the Tatars of the Crimea; but the effort was abortive, and the bulk of the Ottoman army perished in the deserts of the Manitch. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Astrakhan again underwent a brief but bloody revolution: the rebel Stenko Razin, made himself master of the town, gave it up to horrible massacres, and for a while caused serious alarm to Russia. At present the ancient capital of the Tatar kingdom is merely the chief town of a government, which though presenting a surface of more than 4000 geographical square miles, yet possesses only 285,000 inhabitants, of whom 200,000 are nomades. It contains a great number of squares, churches, and mosques. Its old embattled towers and its walls, which still include a considerable space of ground, remind the traveller of its ancient warlike renown. Its population, a medley of all the races of Asia, amounts in number to 45,703, the bulk of whom are Russians, Kalmucks, and Tatars. The Armenians are shopkeepers here, just as they are in all countries in the world; notwithstanding their religion, which should make them coalesce with the Westerns, they retain in their manners and customs every thing belonging to the East. The Armenian carries everywhere with him that spirit of traffic which is common to him with the Jew; always at work on some stroke of business, always ready to seize a flying opportunity; discounting, computing, figuring, with indefatigable patience. Meet him where you will, in the fertile valleys of Armenia, in the snowy North, or beneath a southern sky, everywhere he exhibits that intense selfishness which stands him in lieu of the patriotic feelings so potent in most other branches of the human family. This nation, dispersed over the whole world like the Jews, presents one of those distinctive types of feature characteristic of an unmixed race, which are to be found in full preservation only among Eastern nations. The brown mantle in which the Armenian women wrap themselves at Constantinople, is here replaced by long black veils that cover them from head to foot. This garment, which displays the shape very well, and falls in graceful folds to the feet, when well put on, reminds one of the elegant lines of certain Grecian statues; and what makes the resemblance the more striking, is that the Armenian women are particularly remarkable for their stately carriage and the severe dignity of their features.
The Tatars, upwards of 5000 in number, are engaged in trade, and chiefly in that of cattle. The numerous mosques and the cupolas of their baths contribute to give Astrakhan quite an oriental appearance.
The Indians who were formerly rather numerous in this city, have long since abandoned the trade for which they frequented it, and none of them remain but a few priests who are detained by interminable lawsuits. But from the old intercourse between the Hindus and the Kalmucks has sprung a half-breed now numbering several hundred individuals, improperly designated Tatars. The mixed blood of these two essentially Asiatic races has produced a type closely resembling that of European nations. It exhibits neither the oblique eyes of the Kalmucks, nor the bronzed skin of the Indians; and nothing in the character or habits of the descendants of these two races indicates a relationship with either stock. In striking contrast with the apathy and indolence of the population among which they live, these half-breeds exhibit in all they do, the activity and perseverance of the men of the north. They serve as porters, waggoners, or sailors, as occasion may require, and shrink from no kind of employment however laborious. Their white felt hats, with broad brims and pointed conical crowns, their tall figures, and bold, cheerful countenances, give them a considerable degree of resemblance to the Spanish muleteers.
This result of the crossing of two races both so sharply defined is extremely remarkable, and cannot but interest ethnologists. The Mongol is perhaps above all others the type that perpetuates itself with most energy, and most obstinately resists the influence of foreign admixture continued through a long series of generations. We have found it in all its originality among the Cossacks, the Tatars, and every other people dwelling in the vicinity of the Kalmucks. Is it not then a most curious fact to see it vanish immediately under the influence of the Hindu blood, and produce instead of itself a thoroughly Caucasian type? Might we not then conclude that the Caucasian is not a primitive type, as hitherto supposed, but that it is simply the result of a mixture, the two elements of which we must seek for in Central Asia, in those mysterious regions of the great Tibetan chain which have so much occupied the inventive genius of ancient and modern writers?
The Persians, like the Indians, are gradually deserting Astrakhan. The prohibitive system of Russia has destroyed all their commercial resources, and now only some hundreds of them, for the most part detained by penury, are to be found in their adopted country, employed in petty retail dealings. We went over the vast Persian khans of Astrakhan, but saw none of those gorgeous stuffs for which they were formerly so celebrated. The ware rooms are empty, and it is but with great difficulty the traveller can now and then obtain cashmeres, silky termalamas, or any other of those productions of Asia which so much excite our curiosity, and which were formerly a source of prosperity to the town.
Astrakhan has for some years had a lazaret on the mouths of the Volga at seventy-five versts from its walls. The history of this establishment is curious enough. Before it was built on the site it now occupies, building had been carried on to a considerable extent at two other spots which were successively abandoned as unsuitable. It was not until much time and money had been spent, that an engineer took notice of a little island exceedingly well adapted to the purpose, and on which the lazaret was finally erected. Some years afterwards there was found in the town archives a manuscript note left by Peter the Great at his departure from Astrakhan, and in which he mentioned that very island as well suited for the site of a lazaret. A glance had enabled the tsar to perceive the importance of a locality which many engineering commissions discovered only after repeated search.
Paving is a luxury quite unknown in Astrakhan, and the streets are as sandy as the soil of the environs. Though they are almost deserted during the day, on account of the intense heat, few spectacles are more lively and picturesque than that which they present in the evening, when the whole town awakes from the somnolency into which it had been cast by a temperature of 100. Every one then hastens to enjoy the refreshing air of the twilight; people sit at the doors amusing themselves with the sight of whatever passes; business is resumed, and the shops are in a bustle; a numerous population of all races and tongues spreads rapidly along the bridges and the quays bordered with trees; the canal is covered with caiques laden with fruit and arbutus berries; elegant droshkies, caleches, and horsemen rush about in all directions, and the whole town wears a gala aspect that astonishes and captivates the traveller. He finds there collected into a focus all the picturesque items that have struck him singly elsewhere. Alongside of a Tatar dwelling stretches a great building blackened by time, and by its architecture and carvings carrying you back to the middle ages. A European shop displays its fashionable haberdashery opposite a caravanserai; the magnificent cathedral overshadows a pretty mosque with its fountain; a Moorish balcony contains a group of young European ladies who set you thinking of Paris, whilst a graceful white shadow glides mysteriously under the gallery of an old palace. All contrasts are here met together; and so it happens that in passing from one quarter to another you think you have but made a short promenade, and you have picked up a stock of observations and reminiscences belonging to all times and places. The Russians ought to be proud of a town which did not spring up yesterday, like all the others in their country, and where one is not plagued with the cold, monotonous regularity that meets you without end in every part of the empire.
The churches in Astrakhan are not built in the invariable Greek style of all the other religious buildings of Russia: they have carvings, spires, and balustrades, something to attract the gaze, and details to fix it. The cathedral, built towards the end of the seventeenth century, is a large square edifice, surmounted by five cupolas, gilded and starred with azure, and presenting a style midway between those of Asia and Europe. The interior is hung with pictures of no value in point of art, but attractive to the eye from the richness of their frames, most of which are of massive silver curiously chased. The most interesting monument in Astrakhan is a small church concealed in Peter the Great's fort. It is attributed to Ivan IV. Its architecture is purely Moorish, and it is fretted all over with details exceedingly interesting to an artist. Unfortunately, it has long been abandoned, and is now used as a warehouse.
The climate of Astrakhan is dry, and very hot. For three months the thermometer seldom falls in the day below 95. This great heat enervates both mind and body, and sufficiently accounts for the extreme sloth of the inhabitants. But in consequence of its dryness the atmosphere possesses a transparent purity that would enchant a painter, giving as it does to every object a warmth and lucidity worthy of Italy.
A very serious source of annoyance to the Astrakhaners, and still more to the foreigner, is the swarm of gnats and other insects that fill the air at certain seasons. Their pertinacious attacks baffle all precautions; it is in vain you surround yourself with gauze at night, and resign yourself to total darkness during the day, you are not the less persecuted by them, and you exhaust yourself with ineffectual efforts against an invisible enemy.
They are sinking an artesian well in the upper part of the town. They had reached, when we were there, a depth of 166 yards; but instead of water there escaped a jet of carburretted hydrogen, which had been burning for three weeks with great brilliancy.
Astrakhan now contains 146 streets, 46 squares, 8 market-places, a public garden, 11 wooden and 9 earthen bridges, 37 churches (34 of stone, 3 wooden), 2 of which are cathedrals; 15 mosques, 2 of them of stone; 3883 houses, 288 of which are of stone, the rest of wood. All narratives of travels tell of the gardens of Astrakhan, and the magnificent fruit produced in them. Unfortunately, these are pure fictions, for there are but 75 gardens or vineyards around the town, and it is only by means of irrigation with Persian wheels that they are rendered productive. All the fruit of the place, moreover, is very poor, if not decidedly bad. The grapes alone are tolerable and of very various kinds, suitable for the table, but none of them fit for making wine. As for the celebrated water-melons, they are held in very low esteem in the country, and the people of the town talk only of those of Kherson and the Crimea. It is very possible, however, that the fruit of Astrakhan may have deserved its high reputation previously to the Muscovite domination. Here, as everywhere else, the Russian population, in taking the place of the Tatars, can only have destroyed the agricultural resources of the country. The Russian townspeople being exclusively traders and shopkeepers, and never engaging in rural pursuits, the gardens almost all belong to Tatars and Armenians.
As for the government of Astrakhan, its territory is one of the most sterile in the empire. Agriculture is there wholly unproductive; in general nothing is sowed but a little maize and barley, provisions of all kinds being procured from Saratof, by way of the Volga. It is this that gives some little briskness to the navigation of that river; for besides the corn consumed by Astrakhan, and the towns dependent on its jurisdiction, Saratof and the adjoining regions send supplies also to Gourief, on the mouth of the Ural, to the army cantoned on the Terek, and even to the Transcaucasian countries. Nevertheless, there are no boats plying regularly on the Volga; it is only at the period of the fair of Nijni Novgorod, that the clumsy steamer we saw proceeding to Prince Tumene's condescends to dawdle up the stream.
The day after our arrival in Astrakhan we were taken to the house of some Hindu brahmins, where we were to be present at the evening prayers. We were received by the chief among them in the most courteous and obliging manner. The room into which he led us looked to the west, and had no other furniture than large Turkish divans, and the only thing capable of attracting our attention was a little chapel let into the wall, and which two priests were in the act of arranging for the ceremony. One of them kept his eyes constantly turned towards the west, watching with religious attention the descent of the sun's disc to the horizon. These brahmins were dressed in long brown robes, crossed in front by a white scarf, the two ends of which swept the ground. Their bronzed and antiquely moulded visages were surmounted by white muslin turbans with large folds. The leader, who was much less absorbed in his devotions than the rest, was continually smiling upon us, and waving a monstrous Persian fan that had the effect of a smart breeze. Meanwhile the sun was fast declining; at last its total disappearance was announced by the harsh sound of a conch-shell, whereupon one of the priests lighted several tapers and placed them before an image in the chapel. Another began to wash curiously-shaped vessels, filled them with water of lustration, and prostrated himself before them with great unction. A large grey stone set in the wall, appeared to be the principal object of their adorations. According to the explanation given to us by the chief priest, the soul of a celebrated saint, grown weary of the world and of men, had retired within that mystical covering; hence the stone is sacred in the eyes of the Hindus, and the mere sight of it, as they declare, is capable of working miracles. After worshipping in silence for some minutes, the chief priest began to burn perfumes, and the room was soon filled with a cloud of smoke, seen through which every object assumed a vaguer and more mysterious form, the pungent aromatic odour, combined with the heat and the strangeness of the scene before our eyes, acted so strongly upon us that we were soon unable to distinguish what was real from what was fantastic. In fact, our semi-ecstatic condition was in remarkable accordance with the moral state of our brahmins. Their religious enthusiasm soon ceased to content itself with mere prostrations. Hitherto every thing had passed in complete silence, but at a given signal two priests knelt down before the holy stone and recited a prayer, in slow and guttural accents. Another with his arms crossed on his breast, stood a few steps off from the chapel, and now and then blew upon a shrill whistle. The fourth, armed with a conch-shell, stood upon one of the divans, and added his voice to the sounds which his companions gave out with increasing loudness. Presently their eyes kindled, the muscles of their frames grew tense, the conch vibrated, a bell was rapidly agitated by the leader, and then began so strange and infernal a din, a scene so grotesque and wild, that one would really have thought the brahmins were all possessed by devils. Their attitudes and frantic gestures conveyed the idea of exorcism rather than of prayer. What we felt it would be impossible to describe; it was a mixture of surprise, curiosity, disgust, and fright. Had not fatigue compelled the actors in this sabbat to stop after ten minutes' exertion, I doubt that we should have been able to support a longer continuance of such a spectacle. One would almost be disposed to say that men take pains to worship God in the least religious manner possible. I have seen the whirling and howling dervishes at Constantinople, whose strange and frightful performances can be compared only to those of the medieval convulsionaries. The religious music of the Kalmucks is not behind-hand with these aberrations of the human mind; and here is the Hindu, worship, which seems to vie with whatever is most demented and extravagant in other religions.
When the abominable concert was ended, the leader took a handful of yellow flowers, like marigolds, dipped them in Ganges water, and presented one to each of us. Then he kneaded a piece of dough in his hands, and gave it a symbolic form, stuck seven small tapers in it, waved it in every direction before the chapel, and then turning towards us, repeated the same ceremony. Lastly, he took a small white shell, which had been lying until then on the sacred stone, filled it with sacred water from the Ganges, and sprinkled us with it very devoutly. Meanwhile, his companions were setting out a table with a collation of fine fruit and pastry, of which the leader did the honours to us with much politeness and gallantry. So ended a scene as difficult to describe well as to forget.
Now let us leave the Indians and their odd ceremonies, and recur to the European usages, which, to our great surprise we found in many salons of Astrakhan.
A singular thing, and one which must strike the traveller strongly, is the moral influence which France exercises in all countries of the world. Wherever you find any trace of civilisation, you are sure to discern the effect of that influence, whether in manners, dress, or political opinions, and that, even among rulers the most distant.
Most of our romance-writers are probably not aware that their works are read with avidity even on the banks of the Caspian, and are criticised there with as much acuteness as in the great capitals of Europe. All who call themselves Russians, in Astrakhan, speak French, and receive every month our newest publications from Brussels. In many of the libraries I found Lamartine, Balzac, Alexandra Dumas, Eugene Sue, George Sand, De Musset, &c., and many other names less known perhaps in Paris than in Astrakhan.
The Russian ladies read a great deal; they are generally gifted with natural talent, and converse with tact and to the purpose. Their only fault in this respect is, that they confine their reading to romances and novels, which almost always warp their judgment, and give them quite erroneous notions of our habits and our literature. Paul de Kock and Pigault Lebrun are especial favourites throughout the empire, and their pictures of low life are read much more eagerly than the elegant and chastened pages of our best writers. I must acknowledge, however, that many Russian ladies are capable of appreciating the gravest works. I saw on many a table in Astrakhan, "Les Ducs de Bourgogne," "L'Histoire du Bas Empire," "La Conquete des Normands," and even treatises on geology. It is needless to add, that our fashions and the prodigies of our civilisation are adopted with the same avidity as our literature.
I had some difficulty in believing myself on the verge of the Caspian, when listening to conversation on the fine arts, and on industrial economy, just as in Vienna or Paris. Music, too, is in high vogue in Astrakhan, and many of Donizetti's pieces are sung there by brilliant and cultivated voices. Our quadrilles, too, are all the rage there, and so are the charming melodies of Loiza Puget.
On the faith of some travellers who have been, or are reported to have been in Astrakhan, we expected to find a good many English, Italians, and even French in the town; but the fact is, it does not even contain a single individual of those nations, and its society consists solely of Russians and Germans, sent thither as employes. I could hear of but one Belgian, formerly a prisoner of war, who became a tailor, and now enjoys a very handsome fortune. Astrakhan pretends to have a theatre, but I have little to say for it. Imagine a very ugly and very black hall furnished with some thirty niches in double row; a pit adorned with a few dirty caftans; an orchestra composed of a paltry violin and half-a-dozen trumpets, the whole lighted up by a row of candles on the proscenium, and you have an idea of what presumes to call itself a theatre on the Caspian shores. As for the pieces and the actors, they are altogether beneath criticism.
The governor gave a grand ball and some soirees during our stay in Astrakhan. Though the heat was intolerable, the rooms were every time filled with a fashionable throng, always eager for pleasure. The Russian governors of provinces play the part of petty kings, and exercise over all classes an influence, which has its source in the very constitution of the country. Under an absolute government, every superior employe exercises unbounded authority in his own sphere. He has his courtiers, his favourites, his numerous chancery, his orderly officers, and his etiquette modelled on that of St. Petersburg, in short all that constitutes the outward tokens of power. But all these appearances of grandeur and might are but relative, for above these petty kings stands a sovereign will, that can by one word strip them of their privileges, and send them to Siberia. We must not imagine that slavery exists in Russia only for the people; whether you go east or west, into the brilliant salons of St. Petersburg, or into the isbas of the Muscovite peasant, you find it everywhere; only it is commonly disguised under forms that deceive many travellers, whose judgments are beguiled by the glittering varnish with which the Russian contrives to invest himself, by his numerous staff, his princely abode, and the pomp of his official life. And yet what is all this in reality? Something like the soap bubbles that glisten with all the colours of the rainbow, but vanish with the least breath.
The magnificence of the governor's palace astonished us. On our arrival for the ball, after passing through several rooms sumptuously furnished, we were led into a boudoir, where we found Madame Timirasif, the governor's lady, surrounded by all the elite of the place. She introduced me to several ladies who spoke French very well, and with whom I was soon engaged in a conversation as frivolous and varied as the chit-chat of the Parisian world of fashion. But the music soon began, and we repaired to a very large ball-room, most splendidly lighted, and already thronged with officers. The orchestra, placed on a raised platform, played French quadrilles in excellent style. I took advantage of an interminable mazurka, to learn the names of various personages: General Brigon, a Livonian, hetman of all the Cossacks; Count Pushkin, curator of the university of Casan; Admiral Lazaref; the Kalmuck prince, Tondoudof; the Princess Dolgoruky; and a young Persian, who occupied the attention of all the ladies during the ball. His handsome Oriental countenance, his rich costume, the grace with which he danced French quadrilles and mazurkas, and above all, his title of traveller, gave him an extraordinary eclat, which seemed in no wise to astonish him. I will say nothing of a collection of colonels and aides-de-camp, an inevitable and always profuse element of every Russian party, nor of a battalion of excellencies loaded with more stars and decorations than are commonly seen in the court balls of France or England.
The governor's wife is a specimen of the Russian lady in the highest perfection of the class. Elegant, lively, fascinating, and pleine de distinction, she possesses all the qualities requisite in the queen of a drawing-room. She did the honours of that remarkable soiree with charming grace. The ball ended with a grand supper, which was prolonged until morning.
We passed fifteen well-spent days in Astrakhan. Notwithstanding the heat, we were running about from morning till night, escorted by an aide-de-camp, whom his excellency had assigned to us as cicerone. This very obliging officer being perfectly well acquainted with the country, and being incessantly on the look-out for any thing that could interest us, it came to pass that in eight days we had a much better knowledge of the town than the governor himself. One thing alone escaped our search, namely, one or two families of Parsees, who still inhabit Astrakhan, but whom our guide could not succeed in ferreting out. It was in vain he hunted about and questioned every body; no one could give him any precise information on the subject. Soirees, cavalcades, numerous dinners, and above all, a pleasing intimacy with many agreeable families, filled up our tourist existence in the most charming manner, and made us postpone as long as possible a departure, which was to snap asunder such pleasing social ties.
It would be impossible to surpass the active kindness shown us by the governor and all the best society of Astrakhan. During our whole stay the governor put his caleche at our disposal, and was imitated in this by many other persons. But notwithstanding all these temptations to prolong our abode, we were obliged at last to set in earnest about arrangements for our journey across the Kalmuck steppes. Our first care was to provide all that was indispensable to prevent our dying of hunger on the way. An expedition of this kind is like a long sea voyage; the previous cares are the same; one must enter into the same sort of details as the sailor who is bound for a distant shore.
We laid in a great stock of biscuits, rice, oil, candles, dry fruit, tea, coffee, and sugar, and sent them forward with our escort to Houidouk, a post station near the Caspian, where my husband was to begin his series of levels.
This escort, consisting of ten camels with their drivers and some Cossacks fully armed, had been selected by the governor and M. Fadiew, with a carefulness that proved how much they were both concerned for our safety. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for all the kindness they showed us on this occasion; their anxiety about the result of so hazardous a journey betrayed itself by numberless precautions and recommendations, which might have had some influence on our determination if it had not been irrevocably fixed.
The governor chose from among his best officers, a Tatar prince to command our escort. This young man, who was an excellent sportsman, had a hawk, from which he was inseparable, and to this circumstance was owing the orders he received to accompany us. General Timirasif, always mindful of the privations that awaited us, thought he could not do better than furnish us with so clever a purveyor; who, indeed, proved to be of immense assistance to us. When he presented the officer to us, with his hawk on his fist, his face beamed with satisfaction. "Now," he said, laughing, "my conscience is at ease; here I give you a brave soldier for your champion, and a travelling companion, who will not let you be starved to death in the wilderness."
Orders were sent forward in advance, along all the line we were to traverse as far as Haidouk, that we should be supplied with horses at every station without delay.
Chapter XXI
COMMERCIAL POSITION OF ASTRAKHAN--ITS IMPORTANCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--ITS LOSS OF THE OVERLAND TRADE FROM INDIA-- COMMERCIAL STATISTICS--FISHERIES OF THE CASPIAN--CHANGE OF THE MONETARY SYSTEM IN RUSSIA--BAD STATE OF THE FINANCES--RUSSIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY.
There is no city, perhaps, of eastern Europe, which has played a more important part than Astrakhan in the commercial relations between Europe and Asia. Situated at the lower extremity of the largest navigable river of Europe, it communicates on the one side by the Caspian with Turcomania and the northern regions of Persia; on the other side, by means of the Volga and the Don, it is in direct intercourse with the central provinces of the Muscovite empire, and the whole coast of the Black Sea. With such facilities for traffic, Astrakhan would naturally be one of the chief points of transit for Indian goods during the middle ages, when the passage by the Cape of Good Hope was unknown, and European navigators had not yet appeared in the Persian Gulf. It was towards the middle of the thirteenth century, after the foundation of the Kaptshak empire, and of the kingdom of Little Tartary, that the Caspian Sea became a highway for the Indian trade, with which, in still earlier times, the Petchenegues, the predecessors of the Tatars in the Tauris, appear not to have been altogether unacquainted. Astrakhan on one side, and Soldaia on the Black Sea on the other, became the two great maritime places of the Tatars, and exchanged between them the merchandise of Europe and Asia, by means of the caravans of the Kouban and the Volga.[20] From Soldaia the Indian goods were next conveyed to Constantinople, where they were sold either for the provinces of the empire, or to foreigners trading in that capital. Afterwards, about 1280, when the Genoese took possession of the coasts of the Tauris, Soldaia lost its commercial importance, and the splendid colony of Caffa became the centre of all the Asiatic commerce. Mercantile relations with India assumed fresh activity at that period, particularly when, after the dissolution of the empire of the Kaptshak, in the reign of Hadji Devlet Cherii, the Genoese became masters of Tana, on the Don. The whole trade in spices, aromatic and medicinal drugs, perfumes, silks, and other productions of the East in request in Europe, fell thus into the hands of those intrepid Italian speculators, whose connexions by way of the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, and the caravans, extended as far as the Indies.
But soon a new tempest burst forth, more terrible than any of those which had before shaken the soil of the East. In 1453, Mahomed II. seized Constantinople, and twenty years later all the Genoese colonies fell one after another into the power of the Ottomans. It was in vain the Venetians strove to appropriate the commerce of the Black Sea and the East; their efforts were fruitless, and the closing of the Dardanelles was peremptorily declared. The old communications between Europe and Asia were thus severed, and for many years the precious commodities of the East ceased to find their way towards Europe. But as they were in great demand, and were very costly, merchants contrived to find a new passage for them, and Smyrna became their entrepot. The situation of that town, however, was far from compensating for the disadvantage of a long, perilous, and expensive land carriage. Hence the Indian trade remained in a languid state, until Vasco de Gama's discovery opened a new route for the people of the West.
Smyrna retained the monopoly of the Eastern trade for more than 250 years; and until the middle of the seventeenth century, Persia was the first entrepot for Indian productions, which arrived there by way of the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Beloochistan. They were partly consumed in the country, and the rest was conveyed either to Smyrna by Erzeroum and Bagdad, or into Russia by the Caspian Sea and Georgia. In consequence of this great commercial revolution, the regions now constituting the south-eastern provinces of Russia, lost all their importance with regard to the traffic between Europe and Asia. The great entrepots of Caffa and Tana having fallen into decay, all the routes leading to them were forsaken. The great caravans of the Volga and the Kouban disappeared, the navigation of the Caspian was almost annihilated, and Astrakhan was reduced exclusively to local commerce with the adjoining districts of Russia.
A hundred years after the taking of Constantinople, Ivan the Terrible planted his victorious banner on the shores of the Caspian, and the old city of the Tatars of the Golden Horde fell under the Muscovite sway. Ever since that event, historians have had to record but a long series of disasters, mistakes, and decadence. It appears, however, that under the reign of Ivan the Terrible and his next successors, Astrakhan still continued to supply Russia with the productions of Persia, and with some of those of Central Asia. An English company even attempted, about the year 1560, to open up a commercial intercourse with Persia and Turcomania by way of the Caspian, but failed completely; and subsequently the appearance of the Dutch and British flags in the Persian Gulf, and the immense development of the maritime commerce with India, for ever extinguished, for Astrakhan, the hope of recovering its former position. The navigation of the Caspian was completely abandoned, and the few Asiatic goods which Russia could not dispense with were conveyed to that country by expensive and perilous overland routes. Accordingly, when Alexis Michaelovitz ascended the throne about the middle of the seventeenth century, how to arrive at Persia by sea was almost become an unsolved problem. To this prince belongs, however, the honour of the first effort made by Russia to re-establish the commerce of the Caspian. A maritime expedition was undertaken from Astrakhan in 1660, under the direction of Dutch seamen; but it failed completely, in consequence of the revolt of the Cossacks, and the successes achieved by their leader, Stenko Razin. After this ineffectual attempt, things reverted to their old state, and the commercial history of this part of the empire presents nothing remarkable until the accession of Peter the Great.
The trade with Asia was not forgotten under that illustrious regenerator of the Muscovite nation, who bent all the force of his genius upon the affairs of the East. Filled with the grand design of making the merchandise of Asia pass through his dominions, he repaired in person to Astrakhan, inspected the mouths of the Volga, selected a site for a quarantine establishment, and set Dutchmen to work to turn the shores of the Caspian to profitable account, until such time as political circumstances should enable him to found establishments by force of arms on the Russian coast. But the brilliant expeditions beyond the Caucasus subsequently made by Russia led to no commercial result. Central Asia continued as of old to communicate with Europe by way of Smyrna and the Indian Ocean; and after Peter's death Russia gave up all her pretensions to the southern shores of the Caspian, over which she had entertained strong hopes of establishing her dominion.
Eventually the extension of the Russian possessions southward to the Kouban and the Terek, and eastward to the Ural, was not without its fruits. The safety secured to travellers caused the trade with Persia by way of Georgia to revive in some degree. Astrakhan was again visited by Persian and Hindu merchants, and by caravans from Khiva and Bokhara; the western and eastern shores of the Caspian were again frequented by vessels, and the numerous nomade hordes, of Asiatic habits, that then occupied the steppes of the Volga and the Kouma, contributed not a little to give animation to the commercial interchange between Russia and the Transcaucasian regions.[21]
In the reign of Catherine II. the Russians reappeared once more beyond the Caucasus on the Caspian shores; but it was not until Alexander's time that their sway was definitively established in those Asiatic regions. Once mistress of a vast country conterminous with Persia and Turkey, and washed both by the Caspian and the Black Sea, Russia evidently commanded every possible means for developing to her own advantage a trade between Europe and most of the western regions of Asia. By way of the Caspian and the Volga she could supply all her central provinces with Persian silks and cottons, dye-stuffs, and drugs; besides which she could monopolise the profit on the transit of goods to the fairs of Germany and down the Danube.
At first the Russian government seemed disposed to favour the establishment of all these great mercantile relations; but it did not long persist in its liberal course. It soon began to practise restrictive measures, thus paving the way for the grand system of proscription which it afterwards adopted. In the beginning of Alexander's reign the old trade with Persia still subsisted, and the Russians continued to buy cottons of excellent quality, at very low prices, in Mazanderan, a province situated on the Caspian.[22] The merchants used then to make their payments in ducats, that gold coinage being a sine qua non in all bargains. But the exportation of ducats was prohibited in 1812 and 1813, and thenceforth the Persians refused to trade, not choosing to accept silver coin. The English merchants, always prompt to seize advantageous opportunities, immediately entered the markets of Mazanderan, the cottons of which, purchased by them at low prices, reached Europe by way of the Persian Gulf. At first they paid in ducats; but England soon substituted for specie cloths, and all other kinds of goods suitable to the inhabitants of that part of Persia. It was especially during the war of 1813 that the English led the Persians to adopt their various manufactures. The stop put to the Russian trade opened the eyes of the ministry, who soon revoked the measure concerning ducats, but the mischief was done; commerce had already run into a new channel. Severe as was this lesson it produced no lasting effect. In order to favour a single Moscow manufacture, a duty equivalent to a prohibition was imposed on foreign velvets in transitu for Persia, and thenceforth an article for which there was so important a demand, ceased to be an item in the Russian traffic with Persia.
In 1821, the Russian government seemed to be disposed to wiser views, and allowed European goods free entrance into the ports of Georgia. Thereupon, a great transit trade rapidly sprang up between Turkey, Persia, and the great German fairs, by way of Radzivilov, Odessa, Redout Kaleh, and Tiflis. This new and very promising line of communication had but a brief duration, for ten years afterwards, Russia, in her infatuation, destroyed all these magnificent commercial elements, as we have already shown. She closed the Transcaucasian provinces against European goods, and thus gave an immediate impulse to the prosperity of her formidable competitors in Trebisond, which soon surpassed the establishments on the Persian Gulf, and became the principal port in Persia and the point of destination for English goods, to the annual value at present of more than two millions sterling.
The Trebisond route having been once adopted, the trade in drugs and dye-stuffs was likewise lost for Russia.
It is scarcely conceivable with what perverse obstinacy the Russian government has persisted in its course, in defiance of all warning; and whilst the people of Persia and Turkey in Asia, were forsaking their old commercial routes for new markets, Russia has gone on making her prohibitive system more and more stringent, even to the extent of excluding the common pottery, an immense quantity of which was formerly sent from Khiva and Bokhara to Astrakhan, for the use of the Tatars and Kalmucks.
It was through the effect of such measures as these that Astrakhan lost all trace of its former greatness. In 1839 it contained only forty-eight merchants of the first guild, including women and children, and had but forty-eight vessels belonging to its port. Of these forty-eight vessels, having a total tonnage of about nine millions of kilogrammes, eleven belonged to the crown, twenty-five were the property of private individuals, and were employed as government transports; there remained, therefore, for trade only twelve vessels, one-third of which were unemployed. The vessels belonging to the other ports of the Caspian in connexion with Astrakhan, such as Baku and Salian, were eight in number, with a tonnage of 387,000 kilogrammes, besides about sixty coasters, tonnage unknown. Such is the deplorable condition to which the trade and navigation of the Caspian have been reduced by an exclusive government, which would never consent to understand the reciprocal nature of traffic, but foolishly hoped to preserve its commercial intercourse with nations whose productions it rejects, and to which it refuses even the transit of the foreign goods they require. Do what she will, Russia will never succeed in adequately replacing for the Mussulmans of the south of the empire the manufactures of Asia, which are peculiarly adapted to their habits and their wants, or in inducing the Transcaucasian countries to adopt her own sorry manufactures. The spread of English commerce, moreover, in the western regions of Asia is now a historical fact, and Russia cannot possibly check it unless she become mistress, some time or other, of Constantinople. It is true she may compete in some hardware goods with the higher-priced productions of England; but the Asiatics are excellent judges of such matters; they are seldom tempted by mere cheapness; on the contrary, experience proves that they prefer the English goods, the soundness and high finish of which they fully appreciate. But even though the Russian goods were as well made as the English, the prohibitive system of the empire, and the refusal of transit to European merchandise, would still be sufficient to deprive the country of all export trade in the Caspian; for the people of Asia will always give the preference to those commercial relations which afford them opportunities for exchanges suitable to their wants, along with the advantages of a more extensive demand.
The trade of the two Russian ports of the Caspian in 1835, was as follows:--
Exports. Imports. Duties. rubles. rubles. rubles. Astrakhan 2,235,514 2,235,514 127,241 Baku 556,016 1,564,924 81,735 --------- --------- ------- 2,791,530 3,800,438 208,976
Which gives for the whole Caspian a general circulation of about 6,500,000 rubles. The trade has still continued to decline since 1835. We find it stated in the journal of the ministry of the interior, that the whole exports of the Russian Transcaucasian provinces, by the Black Sea, the Caspian, and overland, amounted in 1839, to but 3,889,707 rubles,[23] whilst the imports by the Caspian, did not exceed 2,896,008 rubles, nearly a million less than in 1835. In the same year Persia supplied, by the overland route, goods to the amount of 8,545,035 rubles to the Caucasian provinces. Now these goods consisted, according to the documents of the government itself, not of raw materials, but almost entirely in silk and cotton fabrics. The fact is, that notwithstanding the high duties of the imperial tariff, the people of Asia, who know nothing of the fantastic changes of fashion, always prefer the durable productions of the Persian looms to the flimsy tissues which Russia offers them, at very high prices, in consequence of the great remoteness of Moscow, the only seat of manufactures in the empire. Again, the Persians, finding that Russia can supply them with but few articles suited to them, keep all the raw materials produced in their country, and those which reach them from Central Asia, to exchange them for the European goods, which are now briskly and abundantly supplied in Trebisond and Tauris. Thus the Ghilan[24] silks, the Mazanderan cottons, the gall-nuts of Kurdistan, the tobaccoes of Shiraz, the gums, dye-stuffs, saffron, &c., have completely deserted the Caspian, and the route from Tiflis to Redout-Kaleh, for that by way of Erzeroum and Trebisond. Another circumstance in favour of this new line is the low rate of carriage and duties in Turkey; the latter never exceed three per cent. for Europeans, and four per cent. for Persians; but in reality merchants seldom pay more than half that amount. Altogether the transit from Constantinople does not augment the first cost of goods by more than ten per cent. Hence it is easy to infer how difficult it is for Russia, whose manufacturing power is still so inconsiderable, to contend with the other European states in the markets of Persia, and how grossly it blundered when it voluntarily annihilated all transit trade through its dominions, in the vain hope of forcing its own productions on the Transcaucasian countries.
One of the most curious things connected with the destruction of all these elements of wealth is the petty artifices practised by the ministry to make Europe, and the head of the government, believe that the extension of commerce is nowhere more sedulously pursued than in Russia. For instance, the fort of Alexandrof has been built on the north-east coast of the Caspian, under the pretence of providing a receptacle for the imaginary caravans from Khiva and Bokhara. Unfortunately, the locality affords neither fresh water nor wood, nor any one necessary; accordingly, as might have been foreseen, it has not been visited by a single caravan. The garrison consists of 600 men, and requires to be constantly renewed in consequence of its suffering by scurvy; the commandant is obliged to procure fresh water from the mouths of the Ural, which is conveyed to him in packet-boats. The fort has not even proved of use for the protection of the fishery which is carried on not far from its site. The soldiers cannot venture from their redoubts without incurring the risk of being carried off by the Khirghis. More than eighty Russian fishermen were made prisoners in 1839 by those nomades, and sold in Khiva and Bokhara.
It is well known what hopes Peter the Great built on the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the countries situated beyond the Caucasus. It remains for us briefly to discuss the question, whether it will ever be possible for Russia to make the Indian trade return to its old route.
Now that navigation has made such amazing progress, now that the establishment of steamboats on the Euphrates and the Red Sea, is a solved problem, and the cost of freight by sea is exceedingly reduced, we think there is no longer a chance for Russia to divert the course of the Indian trade, and make it pass through her own dominions. Russia is conterminous with the Chinese empire, and has long enjoyed certain and regular communication with it; and yet the English find it very profitable to sell in Odessa, and all the south of Russia, tea brought them by ships that double the Cape of Good Hope. It is evident that Russia is in a still worse position with regard to India than to China. Should the Russians ever become masters of the Sea of Azof, they might, perhaps, penetrate to Bokhara and Samarkand by way of the rivers Sir Daria (Iaxartes) and Amore Daria (Oxus). This was one of Peter the Great's grand conceptions. But the reiterated attempts that have been made in Khiva, always to no purpose, prove plainly that conquests are not easily to be made in those regions, and that such armies as those of our day are not fitted to traverse the steppes of the Khirghis and Turcomans. And how were it possible, besides, to establish as regular and cheap communications with India, by way of Persia or Bokhara, as those which now exist by sea? It seems, therefore, evident that Peter the Great's projects are become chimerical at this day, and that all the efforts Russia can ever make by herself, will be unable to change the course of the Indian trade. It is only in case of a long maritime war that she could hope to bring the productions of Central Asia to the Black Sea, thence to be distributed over continental Europe. But apart from this trade, there was still a vast field to be wrought: in like manner as the East Indies are become, commercially speaking, dependencies of Great Britain, so Persia and Turcomania might have become tributaries to Russia, had not the latter, blinded by her vanity and jealous ambition, to adopt her deplorable system of prohibition, and destroyed the whole European transit trade which was establishing itself by way of the ports she possesses on the Black Sea.
Our facts and figures have clearly proved that the decay of the navigation of the Caspian has accompanied that of the Asiatic trade; it is important, however, to give some notion of the nature and employment of the vessels actually in use on the Caspian and the Volga. These vessels are divided into five classes, according to the character of their build. The first comprises ships that visit all the ports of the Caspian indiscriminately; the second, those that ply only in the neighbourhood of Astrakhan; the third, those that confine themselves to the mouths of the Volga from Astrakhan to the sea; the fourth, the river boats that never quit the Volga; and the fifth, those belonging to the Persian provinces.
The ships that visit the ports of the Caspian are called shkooutes, and their hulls are not unlike those of Dutch vessels. They are built of bad timber, and in defiance of all rules. Their number, though greatly exceeding the demands of commerce, is not above eighty; they gauge from 1000 to 2000 hectolitres. Shipowners generally buy old hulls in Nijni Novgorod, and turn them into shkooutes, without ever reflecting that their craziness and want of regularity makes them exceedingly dangerous as sea-going vessels. And then the command of them is given to ignorant pilots, who fill the office of captains in all but the name. The crews consist of from ten to sixteen, and these being chosen by the sole test of cheapness, the result is that the navigation of the squally and formidable Caspian is in very bad repute among merchants, and will inevitably be abandoned altogether.
The shkooutes are employed in conveying Russian and Persian goods, and the workmen, materials, provisions, and produce, belonging to the fisheries situated between Salian,[25] Siphitourinsk, Akhrabat, and Astrabad,[26] and in carrying victuals and stores to the garrisons in the eastern parts of the Caucasus.
Of all these transports, those of the crown alone afford the shippers any chance of profit. The Russian authorities and merchants themselves confess that there is no longer any thing to be got by conveying merchandise from Astrakhan to Persia. Twenty years ago the freights obtained for heavy goods were from 1.30 rubles, to 3 per pood, and from 6 to 10 rubles for light and bulky goods. Now the freight for the former does not exceed from 40 to 70 copeks, and that of the latter never amounts to one ruble. The return charges cannot be stated with accuracy, since they depend on the quantity of goods to be shipped, and the number of vessels ready to load. It often happens that the captains put up their services to auction, and end with losing instead of gaining. This diminution in the charges for freight is evidently the consequence of the superabundance of vessels, of the frequent shipwrecks which cause a preference for land carriage, and of the small amount of importation into the Persian provinces.
The vessels that ply on the Caspian in the vicinity of Astrakhan are known in the country by the name of razchiva. They differ very little from the shkooutes, and cost from 1500 to 4000 rubles. Sailors distinguish them into two classes, manghishlaks and aslams, the former of which take the name from the port[27] whence they formerly carried to Astrakhan the goods brought by the Khiva and Bokhara caravans. This traffic was monopolised by Tatars, who alone had nothing to fear from the Khirghis and Turkmans, when they landed. In 1832, there were but eight manghishlaks, half of which were unemployed. These little vessels carry from 700 to 1200 hectolitres.
The other class of razchivas, designated by the Tartar word aslam (carrier--voiturier), are used to convey household vessels, victuals, timber, and articles requisite for the fisheries. They ply to Kisliar,[28] Gourief,[29] and Tchetchenze,[30] and traverse all the north-western parts of the Caspian, from the Volga to Terek, their principal cargoes being commissariat stores for the troops in the Caucasian provinces. They bring back wine, rice, and Kisliar brandy, which is much esteemed in the country. The number of these razchivas does not, however, exceed fifty. They can make five trips in the year.
These vessels are much more profitable to their owners than are shkooutes. In reality they are but coasters, and as they seldom venture out of sight of the shore, they are much less exposed to wreck. Moreover, in addition to their Astrakhan freights, they keep up an exchange trade in eatable commodities with the nomades of the Caspian shores. They are also employed in the fisheries of the Emba and of Tchetchenze, though the fishermen generally prefer smaller vessels.
The vessels that ply in the mouths of the Volga are some of them decked, some open. The former, which need to be of a certain strength, carry goods directly on board the shkooutes in the offing, whereas the latter stop a little distance from the mouth of the river. Both are really lighters. The water is so low near the mouths of the Volga, as well as in all the northern part of the Caspian, that the shkooutes are obliged to put to sea empty from the port of Astrakhan. About twenty miles from the shore they take in half their cargo, which is brought to them in open lighters, nor can they complete their loading until they are 100 or 120 miles from the embouchure, where they are met by decked vessels whose draught of water does not exceed thirteen feet. The lighters generally belong to petty captains, who realise a good profit by them; but a large proportion of them are lost every year.
The boats that float down the Volga to Astrakhan from the interior, are of extreme diversity of construction. The most remarkable are the kladnyas, which are distinguished above all the rest by their solidity and their Dutch build. They have but one enormously tall mast with two sails, one of which is attached to a boom twice as long as the hull of the vessel. Next after them come the beliangs, flat boats built entirely of deal, and not pitched either within or without. Besides these there are an infinity of smaller boats, which it is unnecessary to describe. All these boats convey goods from Astrakhan to Nijni Novgorod, Saratof, and other places, and vice versa, charging for freight from ten to thirty kopeks per pood, according to distance. They arrive at Astrakhan at stated times, namely, in May, July, and September. The steamboat that makes one trip every year between Astrakhan and Nijni Novgorod, takes from forty to fifty days to ascend the river, and a fortnight to return. The navigation of the Volga, appears by the sailors' accounts, to be growing more difficult every year; some parts of the river are already impracticable for boats of a certain draught. Indeed the fact seems clearly ascertained that the Volga has undergone a great diminution of volume within the last century.
The vessels belonging to the Persian provinces resemble the Russian shkooutes, with this difference, that no pitch is used in their construction, but their timbers are so accurately joined as to admit no water. It is superfluous to say that the Persian shipping is in a still worse position than that of Russia. If to these statistical details we add that all the Russian goods are conveyed by land to the Caucasian provinces of the empire, no more will be wanting to show how deserted is the Caspian Sea.
The manual industry of Astrakhan shares, of course, the decay of its commerce. The metropolis reckoned fifty-two manufacturing establishments in 1838, viz.: one for silks, two for cotton cloths, twenty dyeing-houses, ten tanyards, two candle manufactories, three soap manufactories, twelve tile manufactories, one tallow melting-house, one rope-walk; 615 workmen were employed in all these establishments. It was the fisheries of the Volga that in reality furnished the population with all the means of subsistence; they are still the chief resource of the country, and it would seem as though nature had wished to compensate Astrakhan for the sterility of its soil, by rendering the waters that wash it more prolific than any others in fish.[31] The waters in which the fishing is carried on are private property, or farmed out by the crown and the towns, or they are free to all comers. The most productive spots belong to the princes Kourakin, Youssoupof, Besborodko, &c. The crown fisheries were formerly commercial property; they are now leased to one individual, along with those belonging to the district capitals of the government of Astrakhan. The waters of Astrakhan, though belonging to Prince Kourakin, have nevertheless been gratuitously conceded to the town. They yield for the most part only small kinds of fish, which are consumed by the inhabitants themselves.
The fisheries of the Emba have been free since 1803. They comprise 300 miles of the Caspian coast, from the mouth of the Ural to Mentvoi Koultouk, and take their name from the river Emba. They belonged formerly to the counts Koutussof and Soltykov.
By virtue of a decree, dated March 31, 1803, fishery of all sorts, including that of seals, is free in the maritime waters of Tchetchenze. The island of that name, lying not far from the gulf and cape of Agrakhan, contains vast establishments for smoking, salting, and drying fish, and numerous dwellings occupied by the fishermen. The fishery here lasts all the year through, and yields beluga,[32] common sturgeon, salmon trout, silurus,[33] and two varieties of carp. It has been the custom of the seal-fishers from time immemorial not to destroy any of those animals before the 13th of April; whoever infringes this rule is deprived of all his booty by his comrades, who divide it among themselves. War is waged upon the seals in five different ways. In summer they are hunted on the islands and netted in the sea; in winter they are shot, or killed with clubs on the ice, or at the breathing-holes they break through it. In summer the seals weigh thirty pounds, in autumn about sixty, and in winter often ninety-six.
The permanent fisheries are called vataghis and outshoughis; the places where they are temporary are called stania. An outshoughi consists in a barrier of stakes planted across the river, and sometimes wattled. Below this barrier the apparatus called in Russian samoloff, is placed in the current. It is a cord hung with short lines and hooks, and the business of the fisherman consists in examining the lines, and taking off the fish that are hooked. These are immediately taken to a shed built on piles at the waterside, where they are cut up; the roes, the fat, and the nerves are afterwards conveyed to places where they undergo the processes necessary to fit them for commerce.
As the lines of stakes hinder the fish from ascending the river, the government has for some time prohibited the use of outshoughis, and also of the lines and hooks, by which it is found that scarcely one fish is taken out of a hundred that swallow the bait; the rest escape though wounded, and thus perish uselessly.
The invention of these barriers is ascribed to the Tatars of the khanat of Astrakhan. As fish was an important article of commerce between them and the Russians, it may be presumed that they adopted this means to keep the fish from ascending to the upper portions of the Volga.
The vataghis, usually placed on the heights above the shore, are cellars in which fish is salted and dried. Before the door there is always a platform sheltered by a screen of reeds, where the fish are cut up and cleaned. Nets, some of them several hundred yards in length, are exclusively used in these establishments. It is forbidden, however, to stretch them across the entire width of the river.
The fishing season is divided into several distinct periods. The first, which extends from March till May, that is from the breaking up of the ice to the time of flood, is called the caviar season; it is the most important and most productive of the caviar and isinglass. The second occurs in July when the waters have sunk within their ordinary bed, and the fish having spawned, are returning to the sea. The third, from September to November, is the season when the beluga, sturgeon, and sevriuga[34] return to the deepest parts of the river. These fish are also taken in winter by nets of a peculiar form. At that time of year the fishermen of the coasts often travel over the ice for dozens of miles from the land. Every two men have a horse and sledge, and carry with them 3000 yards of net, with which they capture belugas, sturgeons, silures, and even seals under the ice. These expeditions are very dangerous. The wind often drives the ice-blocks on a sudden out to sea, and then the loss of the fishermen is inevitable, unless the wind chops round and drives them back to land. Old experienced fishermen allege that the instinct of the horses forewarns them of these atmospheric changes, and that their uneasiness puts their masters on their guard against the danger; according to the same authorities, the moment the animals are yoked they turn of their own accord towards the shore, and set off thither with extraordinary speed.
The fishermen of Astrakhan reckon three classes of fish. The first they call red fish, which includes the beluga, the sevriuga, and the sturgeon. The second consists of white fish, such as the salmon-trout, the bastard beluga, the sterlet,[35] the carp or sazan, the soudak,[36] and the silure. To the third class belong all those designated by the general name of tchistia, kovaya or riba, either on account of the closeness of the nets employed to take them, or of their habits of entering rivers in very dense shoals. They are small fish, which are little prized, and are salted for the consumption of the interior of the empire.
The government fishing board has the general control of the fisheries, grants the requisite licences, superintends the election of the headmen, sends out inspectors to maintain order, and collects information as to the produce of the fisheries. In 1828, 8887 men employed in fishing, and 254 in taking seals, with 3219 boats, brought in 43,033 sturgeons, 653,164 sevriugas, and 23,069 belugas: these yielded 330 tons of caviar, and about 34 tons of isinglass. There were also taken 8335 soudaks, and the enormous quantity of 98,584 seals. The sturgeon fishery alone produces about 2,000,000 of rubles annually, but the expenses are very considerable. The revenue derived by the government from the fisheries of the Volga amounts to 800,000 paper rubles.
The celebrated imperial ukase appointing a uniform monetary system throughout the empire, was promulgated during our stay in Astrakhan, and afforded us a fresh opportunity of beholding the amazing impassiveness of the Russians, and their extreme incapability of self-assertion. The change was certainly excellent in itself, and loudly called for by the circumstances of the country, but the manner of carrying it into effect caused a loss of eighteen per cent, to all holders of coin. In Astrakhan, the voice of the public crier sufficed at once, and without warning, to reduce the 4 ruble piece to 3.5, that of 1.20 to 1.05, that of 1 ruble to 0.87, and that of 0.62 to 0.52; and immediately after beat of drum, the law was carried into full force on all commercial transactions. It must not be supposed, however, that this inert resignation of the tzar's subjects is merely the result of their profound reverence for whatever emanates from the omnipotence of their sovereign. Every one of them is fully and keenly sensible of his loss, and if no voice is uplifted against such ministerial spoliations, the cause abides in that total absence of will and reflection which we have already had many occasions to point out as a distinguishing trait of the Russian character. For our own part we cannot but highly approve of the idea of establishing a complete uniformity in the value of coinage, for the variations of value which the same coin formerly underwent in passing from one government to another were exceedingly injurious to trade. We think, however, that the change might have been accomplished by more legal and less violent means. It is true, that by acting as he did, Count Cancrine was sure of realising a gain of eighteen per cent., and this, it may be presumed, was the principal motive that actuated him. Be this as it may, this was not the first time the Russian government took such a course; every one knows that in 1812, the silver ruble fell abruptly to the value of a paper ruble, entailing a loss of seventy-one per cent. on all holders of government bills, who received but a paper ruble for every silver ruble represented by the bills. This state of things lasted until 1839, when the old system was restored. The present government paper, having for its basis a real coin, the silver ruble, worth 3.50 paper rubles (about 3_s._ 2_d._), consists of notes for 5, 10, 20, and even 10,000 rubles. These notes are extremely small, and the government must inevitably realise a large profit annually by their wear and tear and loss. It is likewise very possible that the ministry of finance had no other motive for creating these new notes, than that of preparing means to repeat the bankruptcy of 1812; and seeing the actual state of the imperial treasury, there is no doubt that such an act of bankruptcy would be committed in case of war. Never was the state so oppressed with debt as it is at this day. The war in the Caucasus, the grand military parades, and the payment of a countless host of diplomatic agents, avowed and secret, all absorb immense sums, and the ministry is consequently reduced to miserable shifts to make up the deficit, and restore the balance of the finances. The proposal of a great military expenditure was discussed in the imperial council of 1841, and was opposed with reason by Cancrine, on the too real ground of want of money. The emperor, chafed by an opposition to his wishes such as he was not used to, ordered the grand treasurer to produce all his accounts, that the matter might be investigated in council. Next day the accounts were examined in presence of the tzar and his ministers. One item excited great surprise; an enormous sum was set down as expended, but how or wherefore it was spent was not stated. The emperor yielding without reflection to a sudden impulse of anger, commanded Cancrine to explain what had become of the money, and the minister, who had taken his precautions beforehand, instantly laid before his master a note in which were revealed some singular mysteries. It was, they say, after this memorable sitting that all public works were immediately stopped, the stamp duties were quadrupled, the charge for passports centupled, and new notes payable to the bearer, were issued for more than 100,000,000 of silver rubles. Such are the expedients that constitute the genius of the ministry, and which Count Cancrine thought it right to employ to augment the financial resources of the country. I recollect an anecdote that exactly typifies the notions of that statesman. I was once in the house of a Moldavian landowner of Bessarabia, whose lands bring him in about 10,000 rubles a year. The conversation turned on agriculture. "What!" exclaimed a Russian who was present, "your estate yields you but 10,000 rubles a-year? Nonsense; put it into my hands and I warrant you twice as much."--"That would be a very agreeable thing, if it could be done," said the landlord; "I flatter myself I am tolerably well versed in these matters, and yet I have never been able to discover any possible means of increasing my income."--"How many days do your peasants work?" said the Russian.--"Thirty."--"That's not enough: make them work sixty. What breadth of land do they till for you?"--"So much."--"Double it." And so he went on through the other items of the inquiry, crying, "Double it! double it!" We could not help heartily laughing. But the Russian remained perfectly serious, and I am sure he thought himself as great a man as Cancrine himself; I really regret that I did not ask him, had he taken lessons in economics in the office of that illustrious financier.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Notwithstanding the assertions of most geographers, we are of opinion that the communications between Soldaia, Kaffa, and Astrakhan generally took place by way of the Don and the Volga. Many reasons seem to confirm this opinion. Had it been otherwise, the Genoese would not have attached so much importance to the possession of Tana, on the mouth of the Don. Furthermore, the route by the banks of the Terek and the Kouban, skirting the northern slope of the Caucasus, being much longer as well as more dangerous, by reason of the neighbourhood of the Caucasian tribes, preference would naturally have been given to the route by the Don and the Volga, which passed only through Tatar countries, inhabited by the same people as the traders, and subjected to the same government. It seems confirmatory of this opinion that in the expedition of Sultan Selim against Astrakhan, in 1560, part of the Turkish army marched by that very route. The line of the Manitch must have been little frequented on account of its almost total want of drinkable water.
[21] Among the various nomade hordes then encamped on the soil of Southern Russia, the Kalmucks alone numbered more than 120,000 families; at the same period the Crimea alone had a population of more than 600,000. But these regions have undergone a remarkable change since Peter the Great's time. A large portion of the Kalmucks have emigrated to China, and the Mussulman tribes have lost at least nine-tenths of their population. It may easily be conceived how injurious to the trade with Persia and Central Asia has been the disappearance of these Asiatic races.
[22] The best cotton of Persia is grown on the slopes of the Elbrouz. These regions might easily supply Russia annually with an average of 1,500,000 kilogrammes of cotton, at 65 to 70 centimes the kilogramme on the spot.
[23] Among the articles exported by Russia, the following are to be estimated at the approximative values annexed to them: cotton cloths, 700,000 rubles; woollens, 40,000; linens, 30,000; iron, 200,000 to 400,000; various metal wares, 200,000, and wheat 100,000.
[24] In 1836, Ghilan exported more than 9,000,000 rubles worth of silk to Trebisond.
[25] Salian is a port on the Caspian, at the mouth of the Coura (the ancient Cyrus). The roadstead is tolerably good, and the fisheries are important. An immense quantity of sturgeons are caught.
[26] Astrabad on the southern coast of the Caspian, between Persia and Turkistan, is in regular and easy communication with all the regions of Persia, Khiva, and Bokhara. It is the true key to all the commerce of Asia by way of the Caspian; hence it was an object of special attention for Peter the Great and Catherine II.
[27] Manghishlak is not a town but merely a port, at which vessels used formerly to touch to trade with the nomades of that part of the coast. It is now entirely abandoned; the few vessels which still visit these parts, stop at Tuk Karakhan, near the old landing place, whence goods are conveyed on camels to Khiva in twenty-eight days.
[28] A town on the Caspian, at the mouth of Terek, celebrated for its brandy.
[29] A town at the mouth of the Ural. It belongs to the Cossacks of the Ural, and contains upwards of a hundred houses.
[30] An island not far from the Gulf of Agrakhan.
[31] The particulars that follow as to the fisheries of the Caspian, were communicated to us at Astrakhan. Neither the weather nor the season allowed us to be present at those interesting operations.
[32] The beluga of the Russians is the great sturgeon (Piscis ichthyocolla, Accipenser Huso), its weight often amounts to 1400 lbs.
[33] Silurus glanis, a fish unknown in France. I have found it in the Danube, the Volga, and the Dniepr, where its voracity and strength make it formidable to bathers.
[34] Accipenser stellatus.
[35] A. ruthenus.
[36] Perca asper.
Chapter XXII
DEPARTURE FROM ASTRAKHAN--COAST OF THE CASPIAN--HAWKING-- HOUIDOUK--THREE STORMY DAYS PASSED IN A POST-HOUSE--ARMENIAN MERCHANTS--ROBBERY COMMITTED BY KALMUCKS--CAMELS--KOUSKAIA-- ANOTHER TEMPEST--TARAKANS--A REPORTED GOLD MINE.
We left Astrakhan at eight in the evening, and were ferried across the Volga in a four-oared boat. It took us more than an hour to cross the river, its breadth opposite the town being more than 2000 yards. When we reached the opposite bank we might have fancied ourselves transported suddenly to a distance of a hundred versts from Astrakhan. Kalmucks, sand, felt tents, camels, in a word, the desert and its tenants were all that now met our view. We found our britchka waiting for us; our officer and the dragoman got into a telega or post chariot, and the bells began their merry jingling.
Nothing can be more dismal than the route from Astrakhan to Kisliar. For two days and two nights our journey lay through a horrid tract of loose sand, with nothing to be seen but some half-buried Kalmuck kibitkas, serving for post stations, and a few patches of wormwood, the melancholy foliage of which was in perfect harmony with the desolate aspect of the landscape. The heaps of sand we passed between exhibited the most capricious mimicry of natural scenery. We had before our eyes hills, ravines, cascades, narrow valleys, and tumuli; but nothing remained in its place; an invisible power was ceaselessly at work, changing every shape too quickly for the eye to follow the rapid transformation.
On the evening of the day after our departure, we had an opportunity of testing the prowess of our travelling companion, the hawk. The first theatre of his exploits was a little pond covered with wild ducks and geese, that promised a rich booty.
At a signal from my husband the Tatar officer unhooded the bird, and cast him off. Instantly the hawk darted off like an arrow, close along the surface of the ground, towards the pond, and was soon hidden from us among the reeds, where his presence was saluted with a deafening clamour, and a scared multitude of wild geese rose up out of the sedges. Their screams of rage and terror, and their bewildered flight backwards and forwards, and in all directions, were utterly indescribable, until the arrival of the officer put them to the route, and delivered their assailant from their obstreperous resentment. The moment the hawk flew off, the Tatar followed him at a gallop, all the while beating a small drum that was fastened to his saddle. When he reached the pond he found the bird planted stoutly on the back of a most insubmissive victim, and waiting with philosophic patience until his master should come and release him from his critical position.
The officer told us, that but for his presence, and the noise of the drum, the geese would in all probability have pummelled the hawk to death with their beaks, in order to rescue their companion. In such cases, however, the hawk braves the storm with imperturbable coolness, and adopts a curious expedient when the attacks are too violent, and his master is too slow in appearing. Without quitting hold of his victim, he slips himself under the broad wings of the goose, which then become his buckler. Once in that position he is invincible, and the blows aimed at him fall only on the poor prisoner, whose cruel fate it is to be forced to protect its mortal enemy. When the falconer comes up, the first thing he does is to cut off its head and give the brains to the hawk. Until that operation is completed, the latter keeps fast hold on the quarry, and no efforts of its master can induce it to relax its gripe.
The hawk made two or three more successful flights before we reached Houidouk, and supplied us with a good stock of provisions, which were not a little needful to us in that miserable post station.
During this journey we passed several times very close to the Caspian, but without perceiving it.
At Houidouk, on the mouth of the Kouma, we found our escort, which had been waiting two days for us. Every thing was ready for our departure, but a violent fall of rain detained us three mortal days in the most detestable cabin we had yet entered. Two rooms, one for travellers, and the other for the master of the station and his family, composed the whole dwelling. We installed ourselves as well as we could in the former, the whole furniture of which consisted of a long table and two benches. The walls of this wretched hole were made of ill-jointed boards, that gave admission to the wind and the rain, and to add to our discomfort, it served as an ante-chamber to the other room, and was thus common to the whole household. Hens, children, and the master of the house, were perpetually passing through it, and left us not a moment's rest. Our situation was intolerable; the violence of the tempest increased at such a rate, that we knew not how the miserable wooden fabric could stand against it. All the elements seemed confounded together; there was no distinguishing earth or sky; but the terrible disorder of nature appeared to me more tolerable than the scene within doors. Outside there was at least something for the imagination; the mind was exalted in contemplating the swelling uproar that threatened a renewal of chaos; but the scene within was enough to drive us to despair--children fighting and screaming, fowls fluttering and perching on the table and benches, squalor all around us, and a frowsy atmosphere! To complete our distress, some Armenian merchants on their way to the fair of Tiflis, finding it impossible to continue their journey, came to share with us the den in which we were already so uncomfortable.
But this new incident was a sort of lesson in philosophy for us. When we saw these men conversing quietly as they smoked their tchibouks, without the least show of impatience, and talking of the heavy losses the unseasonable weather might occasion them, as calmly as if their own interests were not concerned, we could not help envying the stoic resignation of which the men of the East alone possess the secret. There is nothing like their fatalism for enabling one to take all things as they come; is not that the acme of human wisdom?
Our escort passed the three days of this deluge in a corner of the shed adjoining the house. Wrapped up in their sheep-skins, those iron men slept as quietly through wind and rain as if they had been in a snug room. One must have lived among the Russians to have any idea of the apathy with which they bear all kinds of privations. Their bodies, inured to the rigours of their climate, to the coarsest food, and most Spartan habits, grow so hardened, that what would be mortal to others makes no injurious impression on them.
At last the rain ceased towards the end of the third day. A west wind followed it, and dispersed the dark threatening clouds that had so long obscured the sky. Though the weather seemed still unsettled, we determined to make for the Caspian, which lay but thirty versts from us. My husband's anxiety to commence his surveying operations, and our eagerness to quit our detestable abode, gave us courage to risk the chance of another storm in the open steppe.
But a very unexpected incident threw the station into confusion just as we were departing, and delayed us some hours longer. A Kalmuck Cossack, mounted on a camel, arrived in great haste and informed us that the Armenian merchants, who had started the day before, had been attacked some distance from the station by a band of Kalmucks and plundered of the greater part of their merchandise.
Our Cossack officer, after listening with great indignation to this story, asked permission of my husband to pursue the robbers. The whole escort set off with him at a hard gallop, but the pursuit was ineffectual. The robbers, having had some hours' start, had already reached the sedges of the Caspian. In consequence of this delay it was the afternoon before we could make a start, and even then we had great difficulty in getting away, for the terrified postmaster entreated us not to forsake him at a moment so critical. His dismay, for which indeed there was little reason, almost infected me too, and it was not without some apprehension of disaster that I left the station.
The appearance of our caravan was curious and grotesque. Our britchka was drawn by three camels, taken in tow by a man on foot, and several other animals of the same species, besides sumpter-horses, were mounted by Kalmucks and Cossacks. Our escort followed, and all the men composing it, armed with sabres, guns, and pistols, looked martial enough to scare away the most daring thieves. The leader of the troop, the Tatar prince, rode with his falcon on his fist, every now and then showing off his skill in horsemanship and venery. Thinking no more of the morning alarm, I gave myself up to the liveliest anticipations of the extraordinary things which this excursion promised us. At last I was about to behold that Caspian Sea which, ever since men have been engaged with geographical questions, has been the object of their researches and conjectures. Besides, it had a much more potent interest for us, for it was in a manner the sole aim and end of our journey; it was to solve an immemorial question concerning it, that we had abandoned the comforts of civilised life, and encountered so many annoyances and privations. Notwithstanding my ignorance of science, I felt that in sharing my husband's toils, I was in some sort a partner in his learned researches, and that I too, like him, had my claims upon the Caspian. I was, therefore, impatient to see it; but our camels, who had no such motives for hurrying themselves, crawled along at a provokingly slow rate. They did not at all correspond with what we had read of the ships of the desert, creatures insensible to hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and as obedient to the will of man as the dry leaf is to the breath of the wind. In spite of a thick cord passed through one of their nostrils, which caused them sharp pain whenever they were unruly, our camels scarcely marched more than two hours at a stretch without lying down. The men had to battle with them continually to rouse them from their torpor, or hinder them from biting one another. Whenever one of the drivers pulled the halter of his camel roughly, we heard loud cries, the more hideous from their resemblance to the human voice. In short our camels behaved so badly during this short trip, as largely to abate the good opinion of their species, which we had conceived in reading the more poetical than true descriptions of our great naturalist.
At some distance from Houidouk we met two camps of Kalmucks, improperly called Christians. These tribes are reputed to be addicted to theft, and are generally despised by the other Kalmucks. We will speak of them again in another place. This whole region, as far as the Caspian, is extremely arid, with only here and there a few pools of brackish water, the edges of which swarm with countless birds, the most remarkable of which are the white herons, whose plumage forms such beautiful aigrettes. Unfortunately, these birds are so wary, that our companion could not take one of them, notwithstanding all his address and the power of his falcon.
A ludicrous misadventure that befel our dragoman, Anthony, amused us a good deal. Curiosity prompting him to ride a camel, he asked one of the Kalmucks to lend him his beast, and the request being complied with, he bestrode the saddle, pleased with the novelty of the experiment, and quite at a loss to know why the Cossacks and camel-drivers laughed among themselves as he mounted. But as soon as the beast began to move, a change came over his face, and he speedily began to bawl out for help. The fact is, one must be almost a Kalmuck to be able to endure the trotting of a camel; the shaking is so violent as to amount to downright torture for those who are not accustomed to it. The unlucky Anthony, left in the rear of the party, strove in vain to come up with us, and was obliged, in spite of himself, to continue his ride to the Caspian, where we arrived two hours before him. I never saw a man so cut up. He groaned so piteously when he was lifted down, that we began to be really alarmed for him.
There are in nature two opposite types, beauty and ugliness; the elements of which vary infinitely, though imagination always erroneously supposes it can fix their boundaries. How often are we fully persuaded we can never meet again an object so beautiful as that before us; yet no sooner have we lavished all our enthusiasm upon it, than a more charming face, a sublimer landscape, or a more graceful form makes us forget what we had regarded as the model of perfection; and itself is soon, in turn, dethroned by other objects which we declare superior to all our former idols. Just so it is with ugliness. It matters not that we have before us the lowest grade we believe it can attain, we have but to turn our heads another way to be amazed and confounded by new discoveries revealing to us the inexhaustible combinations of nature. These reflections occurred to me more and more strongly as we approached Koumskaia. The aridity of the steppes round Odessa, the wilderness of the Volga, the parched and dismal soil of the environs of Astrakhan, in a word all we had heretofore seen that was least engaging, seemed lovely in comparison with what met our view on the banks of the Caspian.
A grey, sickly sky, crossed from time to time by heavy black clouds, threw an indescribably sad and revolting hue over the lonely, sandy plain, and low, broken shore. The same funereal pall seemed to hang over the wooden houses, the gangs of Turkmans and Kalmucks loading their carts with salt, and the camels that roamed along the shore mingling their dismal cries with the sound of the waves.
Yet hideous as it seemed to us, this part of the coast is not unimportant in a commercial point of view. It supplies large quantities of salt, and has a port where vessels unload their cargoes of corn for the army of the Caucasus. We counted at least a score of vessels which had been driven in there by the late storm.
The population of Koumskaia consists of a Russian functionary, a Cossack post, and a few Kalmuck families, that appear very miserable. The employe gave us the use of his house; that is to say, of two dilapidated rooms without glass windows or furniture. One can scarcely conceive how the mind can have strength to endure so very wretched an existence. An unwholesome climate, brackish water, excessive heat in summer, rigorous cold in winter, huts and kibitkas buried in the sand, the Caspian Sea with its squalls and tempests--all these things combine to make this region the most horrible abode imaginable. The major, who welcomed us to Koumskaia, had a slow fever, which he owed still less perhaps to the insalubrity of the climate than to the hardships and mortal ennui he had endured for eighteen months. His wife, more stout-hearted, and amused in some degree by her household occupations, had still preserved a certain cheerfulness, which was no less than heroic in her situation. Their exile was to last in all two years. The government, perceiving that many employes died in Koumskaia, has limited the time of service there to that short period, and as some compensation for what those suffer who are sent thither, their two years are counted as four of ordinary service.
The weather had been louring since we left Houidouk, and we had a regular hurricane the evening we reached the Caspian. It lasted four-and-twenty hours, and such was the noise of the wind and waves, that we could hardly hear each other speak in our room. We saw two or three kibitkas blown away into the sea, and we expected every moment to share the same fate, for our frail tenement creaked like the cabin of a ship; the boarded window let in such a current of air, as soon drove into the room all the garments with which we strove to stop the chinks.
But the saddest chapter of our history remains to be narrated. As soon as our servant had prepared the samovar, and lighted the candles, a multitude of black creatures crept out of the chinks of the walls and ceilings, and dropped from all sides like a living rain. Imagine our consternation at the sight of that legion of black demons swarming around us, and leaving us no alternative but to put out the candles that attracted them. These insects, called in the country tarakans, though disgusting in appearance, are very inoffensive, and seldom climb on the person; but they are fond of light and heat, and hence they are a grievous nuisance in these regions, where their number is prodigious. I had already seen them in some post-houses, but in small numbers, and though I had always disliked them, I had never been so horrified by them as in the house of the major, where they kept me awake all night.
Next morning, the wind having fallen somewhat, we went, in spite of the rain, to gather shells on the shore. The vessels in the harbour all showed signs of having suffered severely by the storm. The waters of the Caspian had a livid, muddy colour I never observed in any other sea in the most boisterous weather.
When we returned to our cabin, the Cossack officer presented to us a Tatar, who asserted he had found gold in a spot forty versts from Koumskaia. Having heard of our arrival, he had walked all that horrible night to ask my husband to accompany him to the spot where he had made the discovery. But in spite of the gold ear and finger-rings he exhibited as tokens of his veracity, my husband was not tempted to lose four or five days in a search that would have led to nothing, to judge from the nature of the ground in which the Tatar reported that the precious ore was to be found.