Chapter XXIX
ROAD FROM GEORGIEF TO THE WATERS OF THE CAUCASUS--A POLISH LADY CARRIED OFF BY CIRCASSIANS--PIATIGORSK--KISLOVODSK-- HISTORY OF THE MINERAL WATERS OF THE CAUCASUS.
From Georgief we set out for Piatigorsk, the chief watering place of the Caucasus, and travelled for three hours over a dreary plain, with nothing for the eye to rest on but here and there a long conical mound, that scarcely broke the dull monotony of the landscape; and even these were scarcely visible through the foggy atmosphere. We felt, therefore, a depression of spirits we had never known in our previous journeyings, and it was still more increased by the thought that we might fall in with those Circassians whose very name strikes terror into the Russians.
The two Cossacks whom the commandant of Georgief had given us for escort, were not the sort of men to assuage our fears, for they seemed themselves very much possessed with a sense of the dangers we were incurring. Their visages grew very serious indeed when we had left the plain behind us, and the road began to skirt along a deep valley, with the waters of the Pod Kouma brawling at the bottom. They were constantly peering in every direction, as if they expected every moment to fall into an ambuscade. Presently they stopped, and called our dragoman to show him a spot on which their eyes seemed riveted. One of them began to talk with great volubility, and from his expressive gestures it was evident he was relating some tragic event of which that spot had been witness. And so, indeed, it was. Anthony informed us that on the very spot where we stood, a young Polish lady had been assailed the year before by several mountaineers, who lay in wait for her in the bed of the torrent. She was on her way to the waters of Kislovodsk, accompanied by an escort and two or three servants. Her followers were massacred or dispersed, her carriage was rifled, and she herself was carried off and never heard of again, notwithstanding the most active exertions to ascertain her fate. One of the Cossacks, who had escaped by miracle from the balls of the Circassians, galloped off to Georgief, and returned within a few hours to the scene of the catastrophe, accompanied by a detachment of cavalry. They found the carriage broken to pieces, and plundered of all its contents; and the ground was strewed with bodies horribly mutilated and stripped of their arms, but neither the body of the young lady nor that of her waiting-maid was among them. It is to be presumed that the Circassians carried them off to their aoul, as the richest spoils of their bloody expedition.
The story of this recent tragedy, related on the very spot where it had occurred, made no slight impression upon us; my dismay, therefore, may be imagined, when a sudden clearing up of the fog enabled us to distinguish at a distance of a hundred yards from the road, what seemed but too palpable a realisation of my fearful fancies. There was no room for doubt. The men before us were those terrible Circassians I had trembled at the thought of meeting. The scream that escaped me, when I caught sight of them, was fortunately heard by one of our Cossacks, who immediately relieved my mind by the assurance that these were men of a friendly tribe. Nevertheless, in spite of my conviction that we had no hostilities to apprehend, it was not without some secret uneasiness I saw them defile past us. The troop was a small one, five or six at most, yet they looked dangerous enough. I shall never forget the glances they cast on our Cossacks as they rode by, though it was only in looks they manifested the hatred that rankled in their hearts against every thing belonging to Russia. They were all fully armed. Their pistols and their damasked poniards glittered from beneath their black bourkas. I confess I was best pleased with their appearance when they were just vanishing from sight on the top of a hill, where their martial figures were relieved against the sky. Seen through the mist, they set me thinking of Ossian's heroes.
We continued to wind our way slowly up a steep and narrow track, and for half an hour we did not see a cabin or a living creature except some vultures of the largest kind, flying silently above our heads. At last we reached the culminating point of the road, whence we could look down on the valley, Piatigorsk, the villas scattered over the heights, and all the details of a delightful landscape, that seemed as if it had dropped by chance amongst the stern and majestic scenes of the Caucasian Alps. From thence we had a gentle descent of about a verst to the outskirts of Piatigorsk.
It is only within the last ten or twelve years that it has been possible to travel in carriages to Piatigorsk without extreme risk, partly on account of the hostility of the Circassians, and partly in consequence of the state of the roads. The latter have been improved, and a great number of military posts have been established on them, so that now the waters of the Caucasus are annually frequented by more than 1500 persons, who visit them from all parts of the empire for health or pleasure. Catastrophes have become more and more rare, and since that which I have mentioned no other event of the kind has occurred.
On arriving at Piatigorsk we took up our abode with the principal doctor, for whom we had letters, and who received us in the most obliging manner. Unluckily we had abominable weather during the whole time of our stay, and the mountains we had come so far to see were hidden from our eyes by an impenetrable veil of mist. We could just discern from our windows the base of the Bechtau, at a distance of but two versts. Our first visit was to the Alexandra spring, so called after the name of the empress. The waters are sulphurous, and their temperature is above 38 degrees Reaumur. The bathing establishment is on a very large scale, and contains every thing requisite for the frequenters of the waters. Other thermal springs are found on most of the heights about Piatigorsk, and the works that have been constructed to afford access to them do credit to the government. On one of the highest peaks there is an octagonal building, consisting of a cupola supported on light columns, which are surrounded at their base by an elegant balustrade. The interior, which is open to all the winds, contains an aeolian harp, the melancholy notes of which descend to the valley, mingled with all the echoes of the mountains. Doctor Conrad, our host, was the author of this pretty design. Being like most Germans passionately fond of music, he felt assured that those airy sounds, coming as it were from the sky, would have a most salutary influence on the minds of his patients. The little temple, surnamed the pavilion of AEolus, must be a favourite spot for those who are fond of reverie and lonely contemplation of the sublime scenes of nature. The view from it is of great beauty, but in order to judge of it we should have been more favoured by the weather; but the glowing description given us by our good doctor made some amends for our mischance. I must own, too, that the trouble we took in ascending was not altogether unrequited, for the vague and mysterious outlines of mountains and forests clothed in mists were not without their charms.
There are several natural and artificial grottoes in various parts of the mountain, affording cool retreats in the sultry season, and an amusing spectacle to those who sit and watch the company proceeding to and from the baths. The physiognomist may there behold the most varied types of features, from those of the Tatar prince of the Crimea to those of the fair Georgian from Tiflis. Society in Russia has one rare advantage, inasmuch as it is free from that fatiguing monotony which pursues us in almost all European countries.
The handsomest quarter of Piatigorsk is at the bottom of the valley, where there is a promenade, with fine trees and seats, flanked on either side by a line of handsome houses backed against the cliffs. The permanent population consists only of the civil servants of the government, the garrison, and a few incurable invalids. The crown buildings are numerous, including, besides the bathing establishment, a Greek church, a very large hotel for strangers, a concert hall, a charitable institution, a hospital for wounded officers from the Caucasus, barracks, &c.
On the whole, Piatigorsk is not so much a town as a delightful assemblage of country-houses, inhabited for some months of the year by a rich aristocracy. Every thing about it is pretty and trim, and displays those tokens of affluence which the Russian nobles like to see around them. There is nothing there to offend the eye or sadden the heart, no poor class, no cabins, no misery. It is a fortunate spot, intended to exhibit to the ladies and princes, courtiers, and generals of the empire, none but pleasing images, culled from all that is attractive in nature and art. What wonder, then, if the annals of the place abound in marvellous cures! The doctor, who is a shrewd man, having perhaps his doubts of the sole efficacy of the waters, has done his part to render Piatigorsk an earthly Paradise; but it must be admitted that his views have been perfectly understood and promoted by the emperor, who is always disposed to display magnificence in the most superficial things. Luxurious refinement has here been pushed so far, that the fair and exceedingly indolent dames of Moscow and St. Petersburg may repair to their baths without alighting from their stylish equipages; and yet the springs are almost all of them several hundred yards above the valley. What peasants' corvees, what an amount of toil and suffering do these commodious roads represent! None but the Russian government is capable of such acts of gallantry!
Though the watering season was over when we arrived, the doctor had still a few patients residing with him, who added much, to the pleasure of our evening meetings. Among these was a young officer, who had returned with two severe wounds from an expedition against the Circassians. The accounts he gave us of his campaign, and of the terrible episodes he had witnessed, often made us shudder. The Russians paid dearly for the conquest of some burnt villages. They lost half their men, and 120 officers. One of the friends of our invalid picked up a pretty little Circassian girl, whose mother had been killed before his eyes. Pitying the fate of the poor orphan, the officer carried her away on his horse, and on reaching Piatigorsk, he placed her in a boarding-school kept by some French ladies. We went to see her, and were charmed with her beauty, which promised to sustain her country's reputation in that respect.
As the weather was not favourable to long excursions, we passed a week of quiet social enjoyment in the doctor's house; but one fine morning the sun, which we had completely forgotten, broke out through the fog, and recalled us, perhaps against our will, to our adventurous habits. Next day we set out for Kislovodsk, situated forty versts from Piatigorsk, in the interior of the mountains, and possessing acid waters of great reputation.
The road, on quitting Piatigorsk, passes at first along the wide and deep valley of the Pod Kouma, which is bounded on the right by rocks heaped on each other like petrified waves, and presenting, in their outlines and rents, all the tokens of a bouleversement; whilst on the left, beautiful wooded mountains ascend in successive stages to the imposing chain of the Kasbeck. At the distance of about two hours' travelling, the road leaves the valley, which has here become very narrow, and runs on a long sinuous level ledge, parallel with the course of the torrent, up to the point where it begins to enter the mountains, and where the miry soil through which our horses laboured with great difficulty, the grey sky and moist atmosphere that had hitherto accompanied us, were at once exchanged for dryness, cold, dust, and sun. This sudden contrast is a phenomenon peculiar to elevated regions, and had been foretold us by our host, who is very learned in all that concerns the atmospheric variations of his beloved mountains.
Nothing I have before attempted to describe could compare with the wild and picturesque scenery of this part of the Caucasus. At certain intervals we saw conical mounds of earth about sixty feet high, serving as watch-towers, on which sentinels are stationed day and night. Their outlines, relieved against the cloudy sky, produces a singular effect amidst the solitude around them. The sight of these Cossacks, with muskets shouldered, pacing up and down the small platform on the summit of each eminence, made us involuntarily own our gratitude to the Russian government for having cleared this country, and rendered access to it so easy for invalids and tourists.
Although it was the middle of October, the vegetation was still quite fresh. Rich green swards covering the steep slopes of the mountains, afforded abundant pasture for the scattered flocks of goats. Their keepers, dressed in sheep-skins, and, instead of crooks, carrying long guns slung at their backs, and two or three powder and ball cases at their girdles, gave a half martial, half pastoral complexion to the landscape. Gigantic eagles flew majestically from rock to rock, like the sole sovereigns of those solitary places. Here we had really before us what we had dreamed of in the Caspian steppes, when, with eyes scorched by the hot sand, and with no amusement but the sight of our camels and the sound of their cries, or the encounter of some Kalmuck kibitkas, we tried to beguile the discomforts of our situation by peopling the desert with a thousand fascinating images.
Before we reached the gorge in which Kislovodsk is concealed, we fell in with a second party of Circassians; but fortified by the safety with which we had pursued our journey so far, and by our stay in Piatigorsk, I indulged without apprehension in the pleasure of admiring them. There were eight or ten of them reposing under a projecting rock, and a very picturesque group they formed. Their horses, saddled and bridled, were feeding at a little distance from their masters, who had not disencumbered themselves of their weapons. Some had their heads entirely enveloped in bashliks, a sort of hood made of camels' hair, which is worn only in travelling; others wore the national fur cap; their garments, of a graceful and commodious form, glittered with broad silver lace; they all had bourkas, a kind of mantle, indispensable to the Circassian as his weapons. When our carriage approached them, some of them sat up and looked at us with an air of scornful indifference, but showed no disposition to molest us.
Our first business on reaching Kislovodsk was to visit the source of the acid waters, to which the place owes its celebrity. It does not break out like most others from the side of a mountain, or from a cleft in a rock, but at the bottom of a valley. Nature, who usually conceals her treasures in the most inaccessible spots, has made an exception in its favour. A square basin has been constructed for it, and there it seems continually boiling up, though it has no heat. It resembles Seltzer-water in its sparkling and its slightly acid taste.
Kislovodsk consists of about fifteen houses, or rather little Asiatic palaces, adorned with long open galleries, terraces, gardens, and vestibules filled with flowers. All the frequenters of Piatigorsk finish the watering season at Kislovodsk. Behind this aristocratic abode extends a narrow gorge, bounded on all sides by vertical mountain crags that seem to cut it off from the whole world. It would require several days to explore all the charming scenes in the neighbourhood. Among its natural curiosities is a celebrated cascade hidden in the very heart of the valley. The way to it leads for an hour along the bed its waters have hollowed for themselves through a thick limestone stratum, over a winding path that narrows continually up to the foot of the fall. At that spot you are imprisoned between cliffs so steep that no goat could find footing on them, and you have before you a dazzling sheet of water descending by terraces from a height of more than sixty feet, breaking into snowy foam where it meets with obstacles on its way, and disappearing for a moment under fragments of rocks, beyond which it re-appears as a limpid stream, flowing over a bed of moss and pebbles.
The position of Kislovodsk exposes it much more that Piatigorsk to the assaults of the mountaineers, and one never feels quite safe there, notwithstanding the Cossack detachment that guards the heights. A Circassian aoul, perched like an eyrie on the highest crest of the adjacent mountains, is a dangerous neighbour for the water drinkers. Its inhabitants, though nominally subdued, forego no opportunity of wreaking their hatred on the Russians.
After our return to the doctor's roof, we went to see the German colony of Karas at the foot of the Bechtau. Its thriving condition does honour both to the colonists and to the government whose protection they have sought. At first it was composed only of Scotchmen, and was founded by one Peterson, a zealous sectarian, whose chief object was the conversion of the Circassians. But his preaching was wholly ineffectual, and by degrees the laborious Germans took the place of the Scotch missionaries. The original intention of the establishments is now scarcely remembered: the colonists are simply agriculturists, and think only of enriching themselves at the cost of the strangers who come to drink the mineral waters.
A short sketch of the history of these waters may not be unacceptable to the reader. It was in the reign of Catherine II., that Russia advanced her frontiers to the Kouban and the Terek, and forced the various tribes established near those rivers to retire into the mountains. In 1780, Potemkin invaded what at present forms the territory of Piatigorsk, and advanced to the Pod Kouma at the foot of the Bechtau. The fortress of Constantinogorsk was erected at that period, and Catherine constrained the neighbouring tribes to acknowledge her sovereignty. But this pacification of the country was hollow and fallacious. The chiefs of the Bechtau had submitted but in outward appearance; they kept up a secret understanding with the inhabitants of Kabarda, and often joined in their marauding expeditions against the common enemy. Hence arose continual conflicts between them and the Russians.
General Marcof took command of the Caucasus in 1798, and adopted the most rigorous measures against the petty tribes of the Bechtau. Their country was invaded by a numerous army and given up to pillage, and the mountaineers, driven from their villages, were obliged to seek refuge beyond the Kouban and the Terek. Thenceforth there was more quiet on the line of the Caucasus, and the Kabardians were less frequently seen in the vicinity of Piatigorsk. It was about this time the sulphurous waters were discovered by some soldiers of the 16th regiment of chasseurs in garrison at Constantinogorsk. It appears, however, that they had been long known and used by the people of the country, as proved by some old baths hollowed out of the rock.
The discovery made by the soldiers was quickly turned to account by their officers, and a small house was erected near by the principal spring at the cost of the regiment. The sulphurous waters were soon known in the neighbourhood, and their fame was spread all over the empire through the medium of military intercourse. Several persons of distinction repaired to them in 1799, at which time medical advice was given by the regimental surgeons, and the patients resided in tents given up for their use by the officers and soldiers. The number of visitors increased every year up to 1804, and the government repeatedly sent chemists and physicians to the spot to study the composition and therapeutic qualities of the waters. Unfortunately in 1804, a contagious disease, which soon proved to be the plague, broke out in a Circassian aoul, seven versts from Georgief. It spread rapidly through all the adjacent countries, and caused a frightful mortality. The sanatory measures adopted in consequence, put an end to all communication between the Caucasus and the Russian provinces, and the mineral waters were entirely forsaken even by the inhabitants of the country. Such were the ravages of the plague, that in the space of five years Little Kabarda lost, at least, the twentieth part of its population. The Russian government omitted no means that could stay the contagion from crossing its frontiers, and it was not until 1809, that free intercourse with the Caucasus was again permitted. Multitude of visitors appeared in the following year, the ordinary tents were not sufficient for their accommodation, and it was necessary to make huts for them with branches of trees; several persons even made their abode in their carriages, and under felt and canvass awnings. The want of new wooden bath-rooms was also felt, and several little chambers were erected round the springs.
In 1811, the concourse of visitors was so great that the Kalmucks of the Caspian were ordered to supply them with 100 felt tents. But even these were found insufficient in the following summer, and by this time the profits realised by the soldiers, who let out their quarters, having attracted the attention of some individuals, considerable stone edifices were soon erected. In 1814, the celebrated Greek, Warvatzi, built new bath-rooms at his own expense, and laid down two roads, one for pedestrians, the other for carriages, both leading to the principal spring. Three hundred Polish prisoners were placed at his disposal for the execution of these works. Thenceforth the place grew up rapidly, and under General Yermoloff's administration, nothing was neglected that could render the various edifices as complete and commodious as possible. Thus was gradually formed the pretty little town of Piatigorsk, which now contains seven principal bathing hotels, and eleven warm sulphurous springs, the temperature of which ranges from thirty to thirty-eight degrees Reaumur.
The waters of Kislovodsk were discovered in 1790, during the war waged by the Russians against the Kabardians, and in 1792, they were numerously frequented under the protection of the imperial troops. The danger was great, however, for attacks were often made by the enemy, who even made repeated attempts to choke up the spring, or divert the waters. It was not until a fort was built in 1803, that the waters could be visited with some degree of security.
The first houses for the reception of invalids were built in 1819; before that time they resided in tents. A magnificent restaurant was built in 1823, and a handsome alley of lindens was planted from the spring to the cataract, the picturesque appearance of which we so much admired. The ferruginous waters, near the site of the Scotch colony, were not made use of until long after the others, in consequence of their remote position, and the woods by which they were surrounded. It was not before 1819, that Yermoloff rendered them easy of access, and they began to be regularly frequented by invalids.
XXX. SITUATION OF THE RUSSIANS AS TO THE CAUCASUS
HISTORY OF THEIR ACQUISITION OF THE TRANS-CAUCASIAN PROVINCES--GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY OF THE CAUCASUS--ARMED LINE OF THE KOUBAN AND THE TEREK--BLOCKADE OF THE COASTS--CHARACTER AND USAGES OF THE MOUNTAINEERS--ANECDOTE--VISIT TO A CIRCASSIAN PRINCE.
Among the various Asiatic nations which force and diplomacy are striving to subject to the Muscovite sceptre, there is one against which the whole might of Russia has hitherto been put forth in vain. The warlike tribes of the Caucasus have victoriously maintained their national independence; and in thus separating the trans-Caucasian provinces from the rest of the empire, they have protected Persia and Asiatic Turkey, and postponed indefinitely all thoughts of a Russian invasion of India. The cabinets of Europe have generally overlooked the importance of the Caucasus, and the part which its tribes are destined to play soon or late in eastern questions. Great Britain alone, prompted by her commercial instinct and her restless jealousy, protested for a time against the encroaching career of the tzars; but the singular manifestation of the Vixen produced no slackening of the operations of Russia. The war has now been going on for sixteen years, yet few exact notions of its character and details are as yet possessed by Europe. Let us endeavour to complete as far as possible what we already know respecting the situation of the Russians in the Caucasus, and to see what may be the general results, political and commercial, of the occupation or independence of that region.
We know that one of Peter the Great's most cherished schemes, the dream of his whole life, was to re-establish the trade of the East on its old footing, and to secure to himself a port on the Black Sea, in order to make it the link between the two continents. The genius of that sovereign must surely have been most enterprising to conceive such a project, at a time when its realisation required that the southern frontiers of the empire should first be pushed forward from 150 to 200 leagues, as they have since been. Peter began his new political career by the taking of Azof and the foundation of the port of Taganrok in 1695. The fatal campaign of the Pruth retarded the accomplishment of his designs; but when circumstances allowed him to return to them, he began again to pursue them in the direction of Persia and the Caspian. The restitution of Azof, and the destruction of Taganrok, stipulated in the treaty of the Pruth, thus became the primary cause of the Russian expeditions against the trans-Caucasian provinces.
At this period Persia was suffering all the disorders of anarchy. The Turks had possessed themselves of all its western provinces up to the foot of the Caucasus; whilst the mountaineers, availing themselves of the distracted state of the country, made bloody inroads upon Georgia and the adjacent regions. The Lesghis, now one of the most formidable tribes of the Caucasus, ravaged the plains of Shirvan, in 1712, reduced the towns and villages to ashes, and massacred, according to Russian writers, 300 merchants, subjects of the empire, in the town of Shamaki. These acts of violence afforded Peter the Great an opportunity which he did not let slip. Under the pretence of punishing the Lesghis, and protecting the Shah of Persia against them, he prepared to make an armed intervention in the trans-Caucasian provinces. A formidable expedition was fitted out. A flotilla, constructed at Casan, arrived at the mouths of the Volga, and on the 15th of May, 1722, the emperor began his march at the head of 22,000 infantry, 9000 dragoons, and 15,000 Cossacks and Kalmucks. The transports coasted the Caspian, whilst the army marched by the Daghestan route, the great highway successively followed by the nations of the north and the south in their invasions. Thus it was that the Russians entered the Caucasus, and the valleys of those inaccessible mountains resounded, for the first time, to the war music of the Muscovite. The occupation of Ghilan and Derbent, and the siege of Bakou were the chief events of this campaign. Turkey, dismayed at the influence Russia was about to acquire in the East, was ready to take up arms; but Austria, taking the initiative in Europe, declared for the policy of the tzar, and vigorously resisted the hostile tendencies of the Porte. Russia was thus enabled to secure, not only Daghestan and Ghilan, but also the surrender of those provinces in which her armies had never set foot. In the midst of these events, Peter died when on the eve of consolidating his conquests, and before he had completed his negotiations with Persia and Turkey. His grand commercial ideas were abandoned after his death; the policy of the empire was directed solely towards territorial acquisition, and the tzars only obeyed the strong impulse, that, as if by some decree of fate, urges their subjects towards the south. Thenceforth the trans-Caucasian provinces were considered only a point gained for intervention in the affairs of Persia and Turkey, and for ulterior conquests in the direction of Central Asia. The rise of the celebrated Nadir Shah, who possessed himself of all the ancient dominions of Persia, for a while changed the face of things. Russia, crippled in her finances, withdrew her troops, gave up her pretensions to the countries beyond the Caucasus, acknowledged the independence of the two Kabardas by the treaty of Belgrade, and even engaged no longer to keep a fleet on the Sea of Azof.
A religious mission sent to the Ossetans, who occupy the celebrated defiles of Dariel, was the only event in the reign of Elizabeth, that regarded the regions we are considering. Hardly any conversions were effected, but the Ossetans, to a certain extent, acknowledged the supremacy of Russia: this satisfied the real purpose of the mission, for the first stone was thereby laid on the line which was to become the great channel of communication between Russia and her Asiatic provinces.
Schemes of conquest in the direction of Persia were resumed with vigour under Catherine II., and were carried out with more regularity. The first thing aimed at was to protect the south of the empire against the inroads of the Caucasians, and to this end the armed line of the Kouban and the Terek was organised and finished in 1771. It then numbered sixteen principal forts, and a great number of lesser ones and redoubts. Numerous military colonies of Cossacks, were next settled on the banks of the two rivers for the protection of the frontiers. While these preparations were in hand, war broke out with Turkey. Victorious both by sea and land, Catherine signed, in 1774, the memorable treaty of Koutchouk Kainardji, which secured to her the free navigation of the Black Sea, the passage of the Dardanelles, the entry of the Dniepr, and, moreover, conceded to her in the Caucasus, the sovereignty over both Kabardas.
Peace being thus concluded, Catherine's first act was to send a pacific mission to explore the country of the Ossetans. The old negotiations were skilfully renewed, and a free passage through the defiles was obtained with the consent of that people. In 1781, an imperial squadron once more appeared in the Caspian, and endeavoured, but ineffectually, to make some military settlements on the Persian coasts. This expedition limited itself to consolidating the moral influence of Russia, and exciting, among the various tribes and nations of those regions, dissensions which afterwards afforded her a pretext for direct intervention. The Christian princes of Georgia, and the adjacent principalities, were the first to undergo the consequences of the Russian policy. Seduced by gold and presents, and doubtless also, wearied by the continual troubles that desolated their country, they gradually fell off from Persia and Turkey and accepted the protection of Catherine. The passes of the Caucasus were now free to Russia; she lost no time in making them practicable for an army, and so she was at last in a condition to realise in part the vast plans of the founder of her power.
At a later period, in 1787, Russia and Turkey were again in arms, and the shore of the Caspian became for the first time a centre of military operations. Anapa, which the Turks had built for the protection of their trade with the mountaineers, after an unsuccessful assault, was taken by storm in 1791. Soudjouk Kaleh shared the same fate, but the Circassians blew up its fortifications before they retired. Struck by these conspicuous successes, the several states of Europe departed from the favourable policy with which they had previously treated the views of Russia, and the empress thought herself fortunate to conclude the treaty of Jassy in 1792, by which she advanced her frontiers to the Dniestr, and obtained the sovereignties of Georgia and the neighbouring countries. But Turkey had Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh restored to her, upon her engaging to suppress the incursions of the tribes dwelling on the left of the Kouban.
Aga Mahomed Khan marched against Georgia in 1795, to punish it for having accepted the protectorate of Russia. Tiflis was sacked, and given up to fire and sword. On hearing of this bloody invasion Catherine II. immediately declared war against Persia, and her armies were already in occupation of Bakou, and a large portion of the Caspian shores, when she was succeeded by her son Paul I., who ordered all the recent conquests to be abandoned. Nevertheless, this strange beginning did not hinder the eccentric monarch from doing four years afterwards for Georgia what Catherine had done for the Crimea. Under pretext of putting an end to intestine discord, Georgia was united to Russia by an imperial ukase. Shortly after the accession of Alexander, Mingrelia shared the fate of Georgia; the conquests beyond the Caucasus were then regularised, and Tiflis became the centre of an exclusive Muscovite administration, civil and military.
The immediate contact of Russia with Persia soon led to a rupture between these two powers. In 1806, hostilities began with Turkey also, and the campaign was marked like that of 1791 by the taking of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, and the establishment of the Russians on the shores of Circassia. The unfortunate contest which then ensued between Napoleon and Alexander, and the direct intervention of England, put an end to the war, and brought about the signature of two treaties. That of Bucharest stipulated the reddition of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh; but Russia acquired Bessarabia and the left bank of the Danube; and Koutousofs 80,000 men marched against Napoleon. The treaty of Gulistan, in 1814, gave to the empire, among other countries, Daghestan, Georgia, Imeritia, Mingrelia, the province of Bakou, Karabaugh, and Shirvan. This latter treaty was no sooner ratified than endless discussions arose respecting the determination of the frontiers. War was renewed, and ended only in 1828 by the treaty of Turkmantchai, which conceded to Russia the fine countries of Erivan and Naktchivan, advanced her frontiers to the banks of the Araxus, and rendered her mistress of all the passes of Persia.
It was during these latter wars that the people of the Caucasus began to be seriously uneasy about the designs of Russia. The special protection accorded to the Christian populations, the successive downfall of the principal chiefs of the country, and the introduction of the Russian administration, with its abuses and arbitrary proceedings, excited violent commotions in the Caucasian provinces, and the mountaineers naturally took part in every coalition formed against the common enemy. The armed line of the Kouban and the Terek was often attacked, and many a Cossack post was massacred. The Lesghis, the Tchetchenzes, and the Circassians distinguished themselves especially by their pertinacity and daring. Thenceforth Russia might conceive some idea of the contest she would have to sustain on the confines of Asia.
We now approach the period when Russia, at last relieved from all her quarrels with Persia and Turkey, definitively acquired Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh by the treaty of Adrianople, and directed all her efforts against the mountaineers of the Caucasus. But as now the war assumed a totally different character, it will be necessary to a full understanding of it that we should first glance at the topography of the country, and sketch the respective positions of the mountaineers and their foes.
The chain of the Caucasus exhibits a peculiar conformation, altogether different from that of any of the European chains. The Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians, are accessible only by the valleys, and in these the inhabitants of the country find their subsistence, and agriculture develops its wealth. The contrary is the case in the Caucasus. From the fortress of Anapa on the Black Sea, all along to the Caspian, the northern slope presents only immense inclined plains, rising in terraces to a height of 3000 or 4000 yards above the sea level. These plains, rent on all directions by deep and narrow valleys and vertical clefts, often form real steppes, and possess on their loftiest heights rich pastures, where the inhabitants, secure from all attack, find fresh grass for their cattle in the sultriest days of summer. The valleys on the other hand are frightful abysses, the steep sides of which are clothed with brambles, while the bottoms are filled with rapid torrents foaming over beds of rocks and stones. Such is the singular spectacle generally presented by the northern slope of the Caucasus. This brief description may give an idea of the difficulties to be encountered by an invading army. Obliged to occupy the heights, it is incessantly checked in its march by impassable ravines, which do not allow of the employment of cavalry, and for the most part prevent the passage of artillery. The ordinary tactics of the mountaineers is to fall back before the enemy, until the nature of the ground or the want of supplies obliges the latter to begin a retrograde movement. Then it is that they attack the invaders, and, entrenched in their forests behind impregnable rocks, they inflict the most terrible carnage on them with little danger to themselves.
On the south the character of the Caucasian chain is different. From Anapa to Gagra, along the shores of the Black Sea, we observe a secondary chain composed of schistous mountains, seldom exceeding 1000 yards in height. But the nature of their soil, and of their rocks, would be enough to render them almost impracticable for European armies, even were they not covered with impenetrable forests. The inhabitants of this region, who are called Tcherkesses or Circassians, by the Russians, are entirely independent, and constitute one of the most warlike peoples of the Caucasus.
The great chain begins in reality at Gagra, but the mountains recede from the shore, and nothing is to be seen along the coast as far as Mingrelia but secondary hills, commanded by immense crags, that completely cut off all approach to the central part of the Caucasus. This region, so feebly defended by its topographical conformation, is Abkhasia, the inhabitants of which have been forced to submit to Russia. To the north and on the northern slope, westward of the military road from Mosdok to Tiflis, dwell a considerable number of tribes, some of them ruled by a sort of feudal system, others constituted into little republics. Those of the west, dependent on Circassia and Abadza, are in continual war with the empire, whilst the Nogais, who inhabit the plains on the left bank of the Kouma, and the tribes of the Great Kabarda, own the sovereignty of the tzar; but their wavering and dubious submission cannot be relied on. In the centre, at the foot of the Elbrouz, dwell the Souanethes, an unsubdued people, and near them, occupying both sides of the pass of Dariel, are the Ingouches and Ossetans, exceptional tribes, essentially different from the aboriginal peoples. Finally, we have eastward of the great Tiflis road, near the Terek, Little Kabarda, and the country of the Koumicks, for the present subjugated; and then those indomitable tribes, the Lesghis and Tchetchenzes, of whom Shamihl is the Abd el Kader, and who extend over the two slopes of the Caucasus to the vicinity of the Caspian.
In reality, the Kouban and the Terek, that rise from the central chain, and fall, the one into the Black Sea, the other into the Caspian, may be considered as the northern political limits of independent Caucasus. It is along those two rivers that Russia has formed her armed line, defended by Cossacks, and detachments from the regular army. The Russians have indeed penetrated those northern frontiers at sundry points, and have planted some forts within the country of the Lesghis and Tchetchenzes. But these lonely posts, in which a few unhappy garrisons are surrounded on all sides, and generally without a chance of escape, cannot be regarded as a real occupation of the soil on which they stand. They are in fact only so many piquets, whose business is only to watch more closely the movements of the mountaineers. In the south, from Anapa to Gagra, along the Black Sea, the imperial possessions are limited to a few detached forts, completely isolated, and deprived of all means of communication by land. A rigorous blockade has been established on this coast; but the Circassians, as intrepid in their frail barks as among their mountains, often pass by night through the Russian line of vessels, and reach Trebisond and Constantinople. Elsewhere, from Mingrelia to the Caspian, the frontiers are less precisely defined, and generally run parallel with the great chain of the Caucasus.
Thus limited, the Caucasus, including the territory occupied by the subject tribes, presents a surface of scarcely 5000 leagues; and it is in this narrow region that a virgin and chivalric nation, amounting at most to 2,000,000 of souls, proudly upholds its independence against the might of the Russian empire, and has for twenty years sustained one of the most obstinate struggles known to modern history.
The Russian line of the Kouban, which is exactly similar to that of the Terek, is defended by the Cossacks of the Black Sea, the poor remains of the famous Zaporogues, whom Catherine II. subdued with so much difficulty, and whom she colonised at the foot of the Caucasus, as a bulwark against the incursions of the mountaineers. The line consists of small forts and watch stations; the latter are merely a kind of sentry box raised on four posts, about fifty feet from the ground. Two Cossacks keep watch in them day and night. On the least movement of the enemy in the vast plain of reeds that fringes both banks of the river, a beacon fire is kindled on the top of the watch box. If the danger becomes more pressing, an enormous torch of straw and tar is set fire to. The signal is repeated from post to post, the whole line springs to arms, and 500 or 600 men are instantly assembled on the point threatened. These posts, composed generally of a dozen men, are very close to each other, particularly in the most dangerous places. Small forts have been erected at intervals with earthworks, and a few pieces of cannon; they contain each from 150 to 200 men.
But notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Cossacks, often aided by the troops of the line, the mountaineers not unfrequently cross the frontier and carry their incursions, which are always marked with massacre and pillage, into the adjacent provinces. These are bloody but justifiable reprisals. In 1835 a body of fifty horsemen entered the country of the Cossacks, and proceeded to a distance of 120 leagues, to plunder the German colony of Madjar and the important village of Vladimirofka, on the Kouma, and what is most remarkable, they got back to their mountains without being interrupted. The same year Kisliar on the Caspian was sacked by the Lesghis. These daring expeditions prove of themselves how insufficient is the armed line of the Caucasus, and to what dangers that part of southern Russia is exposed.
The line of forts along the Black Sea is quite as weak, and the Circassians there are quite as daring. They carry off the Russian soldiers from beneath the fire of their redoubts, and come up to the very foot of their walls to insult the garrison. At the time I was exploring the mouths of the Kouban, a hostile chief had the audacity to appear one day before the gates of Anapa. He did all he could to irritate the Russians, and abusing them as cowards and woman-hearted, he defied them to single combat. Exasperated by his invectives, the commandant ordered that he should be fired on with grape. The horse of the mountaineer reared and threw off his rider, who, without letting go the bridle, instantly mounted again, and, advancing still nearer to the walls, discharged his pistol almost at point blank distance at the soldiers, and galloped off to the mountains.
As for the blockade by sea, the imperial squadron is not expert enough to render it really effectual. It is only a few armed boats, manned by Cossacks, that give the Circassians any serious uneasiness. These Cossacks, like those of the Black Sea, are descended from the Zaporogues. Previously to the last war with Turkey they were settled on the right bank of the Danube, where their ancestors had taken refuge after the destruction of their Setcha. During the campaigns of 1828-9, pains were taken to revive their national feelings, they were brought again by fair means or by force under the imperial sway, and were then settled in the forts along the Caucasian shore, the keeping of which was committed to their charge. Courageous, enterprising, and worthy rivals of their foes, they wage a most active war against the skiffs of the mountaineers in their boats, which carry crews of fifty or sixty men. The war not having permitted us to visit the independent tribes, and investigate their moral and political condition for ourselves, we shall not enter into long details respecting the manners and institutions of the Circassians, but content ourselves with pointing out the principal traits of their character, and such of their peculiarities as may have most influence upon their relations with Russians.[60]
Of all the peoples of the Caucasus, none more fully realise than the Circassians those heroic qualities with which imagination delights to invest the tribes of these mountains. Courage, intelligence, and remarkable beauty, have been liberally bestowed on them by nature; and what I admired above all in their character is a calm, noble dignity that never forsakes them, and which they unite with the most chivalric feelings and the most ardent passion for national liberty. I remember that during my stay at Ekaterinodar, the capital of the Cossacks of the Black Sea, being seated one morning in front of a merchant's house in the company of several Russian officers, I saw a very ill-dressed Circassian come up, who appeared to belong to the lowest class. He stopped before the shop, and while he was cheapening some articles, we examined his sabre. I saw distinctly on it the Latin inscription, Anno Domini, 1547, and the blade appeared to me to be of superior temper; the Russians were of a different opinion, for they handed the weapon back to the Circassian with disdainful indifference. The Circassian took it without uttering a word, cut off a handful of his beard with it at a stroke, as easily as though he had done it with a razor, then quietly mounted his horse and rode away, casting on the officers a look of such deep scorn as no words could describe.
The Circassians, evermore engaged in war, are in general all well armed. Their equipment consists of a rifle, a sabre, a long dagger, which they wear in front, and a pistol stuck in their belt. Their remarkably elegant costume consists of tight pantaloons, and a short tunic belted round the waist, and having cartridge pockets worked on the breast; their head-dress is a round laced cap, encircled with a black or white border of long-wooled sheep-skin. In cold or rainy weather, they wear a hood (bashlik), and wrap themselves in an impenetrable felt cloak (bourka). Their horses are small, but of astonishing spirit and bottom. It has often been ascertained by the imperial garrisons that Circassian marauders have got over twenty-five or even thirty leagues of ground in a night. When pursued by the Russians, the mountaineers are not to be stopped by the most rapid torrents. If the horse is young, and not yet trained to this perilous kind of service, the rider gallops him up to the verge of the ravine, then covering the animal's head with his bourka, he plunges, almost always with impunity, down precipices that are sometimes from ten or fifteen yards deep.
The Circassians are wonderfully expert in the use of fire-arms, and of their double-edged daggers. Armed only with the latter weapon, they have been known to leap their horses over the Russian bayonets, stab the soldiers, and rout their squared battalions. When they are surrounded in their forts or villages, without any chance of escape, they often sacrifice their wives and children, set fire to their dwellings, and perish in the flames rather than surrender. Like all Orientals, they do not abandon their dead and wounded except at the last extremity, and nothing can surpass the obstinacy with which they fight to carry them off from the enemy. It was to this fact I owed my escape from one of the greatest dangers I ever encountered.
In the month of April, 1841, I explored the military line of the Kouban. On my departure from Stavropol, the governor strongly insisted on giving me an escort; but I refused it, for fear of encumbering my movements, and resolved to trust to my lucky star. It was the season of flood, too, in the Kouban, a period in which the Circassians very seldom cross it. I accepted, however, as a guide, an old Cossack, who had seen more than five-and-twenty years' fighting, and was all over scars, in short, a genuine descendant of the Zaporogues. This man, my interpreter, and a postillion, whom we were to change at each station, formed my whole suite. We were all armed, though there is not much use in such a precaution in a country where one is always attacked either unawares, so that he cannot defend himself, or by superior forces against which all resistance is but a danger the more. But what of that? There was something imposing and flattering to one's pride in these martial accoutrements. A Tiflis dagger was stuck in my belt, a heavy rifle thumped against my loins, and my holsters contained an excellent pair of St. Etienne pistols. My Cossack was armed with two pistols, a rifle, a Circassian sabre, and a lance. As for my interpreter, an Italian, he was as brave as a Calabrian bandit, and what prized above all in him was an imperturbable coolness in the most critical positions, and a blind obedience to my orders. For five days we pursued our way pleasantly along the Kouban, without thinking of the danger of our position. The country, broken up by beautiful hills, was covered with rich vegetation. The muddy waters of the Kouban flowed on our left, and beyond the river we saw distinctly the first ranges of the Caucasus. We could even discern the smoke of the Circassian aouls rising up amidst the forests.
On the evening of the fifth day we arrived at a little fort, where we passed the night. The weather next morning was cold and rainy, and every thing gave token of an unpleasant day. The country before us was quite unlike that we were leaving behind. The road wound tortuously over an immense plain between marshes and quagmires, that often rendered it all but impossible to advance. Our morning ride was therefore a dull and silent one. The Cossack had no tales to tell of his warlike feats; he was in bad humour, and never opened his lips except to rap out one of those thundering oaths in which the Russians often indulge. A thin rain beat in our faces; our tired horses slid at every step on the greasy clay soil, and we rode in single file, muffled up in our bourkas and bashliks. Towards noon, the weather cleared up, the road became less difficult, and towards evening we were but an hour and a half from the last fort on that side of Ekaterinodar. We were then proceeding slowly, without any thought of danger, and I paid no heed to the Cossack, who had halted some distance behind. But our quick-eared guide had heard the sound of hoofs, and in a few seconds he rode up at full speed, shouting with all his might, "The Tcherkesses! the Tcherkesses!" Looking round we saw four mountaineers coming over a hill not far from the road. My plan was instantly formed. The state of our horses rendered any attempt at flight entirely useless; we were still far from the fortress, and, once overtaken, we could not avoid a fight, the chances of which were all against us. The Cossack alone had a sabre, and when once we had discharged our fire-arms, it would be all over with us. But I knew that the Circassians never abandoned their dead and wounded, and it was on this I founded our hope of safety. My orders were quickly given, and we continued to advance at a walk, riding abreast, but sufficiently wide apart to leave each man's movements free. Not a word was uttered by any of us. I had incurred many dangers in the course of my travels, but I had never been in a situation of more breathless anxiety. In less than ten minutes we distinctly heard the galloping of the mountaineers, and immediately afterwards their balls whizzed past us. My bourka was slightly touched, and the shaft of the Cossack's lance was cut in two. The critical moment was come; I gave the word, and we instantly wheeled round, and discharged our pistols at arm's length at our assailants: two of them fell. "Away now, and ride for your lives," I shouted, "the Circassians will not pursue us." Our horses, which had recovered their wind, and were probably inspirited by the smell of powder, carried us along at a sweeping pace, and never stopped until we were within sight of the fortress. Exactly what I had foreseen had happened. On the morning after that memorable day the garrison turned out and scoured the country, and I accompanied them to the scene of action. There were copious marks of blood on the sand, and among the sedges on the side of the road we found a shaska, or Circassian sabre, which had been dropped no doubt by the enemy. The commanding officer presented it to me, and I have kept it ever since as a remembrance of my perilous interview with the mountaineers. It bears the mark of a ball.
It would be difficult to give any precise idea respecting the religious principles of the various nations of the Caucasus. The charge of idolatry has been alleged against several of them, but we think without any good grounds. Paganism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, have by turns found access among them, and the result has been an anomalous medley of no clearly defined doctrines with the most superstitious practices of their early obsolete creeds. The Lesghis and the eastern tribes alone are really Mohammedans. As for the Ossetans, Circassians, Kabardians, and other western tribes, they seem to profess a pure deism, mingled with some Christian and Mussulman notions. It is thought that Christianity was introduced among these people by the celebrated Thamar, Queen of Georgia, who reigned in the latter part of the twelfth century; but it is much more probable that this was done by the Greek colonies of the Lower Empire, and afterwards by those of the republic of Genoa in the Crimea. The Tcherkesses to this day entertain a profound reverence for the crosses and old churches of their country, to which they make frequent pilgrimages, and yearly offerings and sacrifices. It seems, too, that the Greek mythology has left numerous traces in Circassia; the story of Saturn for instance, that of the Titans endeavouring to scale heaven, and several others, are found among many of the tribes. A very marked characteristic of the Circassians is a total absence of religious fanaticism. Pretenders to divine inspiration have always been repulsed by them, and most of them have paid with their lives for their attempts at proselytism. This is not the case on the Caspian side of the mountains, where Shamihl's power is in a great measure based on his religious influence over the tribes.
When two nations are at war, it usually happens that the one is calumniated by the other, and the stronger seeks an apology for its own ambition in blackening the character of its antagonist. Thus the Russians, wishing to make the inhabitants of the Caucasus appear as savages, against whom every means of extermination is allowable, relate the most absurd tales of the ferocious tortures inflicted by them on their prisoners. But there is no truth in all this. I have often met military men who had been prisoners in the mountains, and they unanimously testified to the good treatment they had received. The Circassians deal harshly only with those who resist, or who have made several attempts to escape; but in those cases their measures are fully justified by the fear lest the fugitives should convey important topographical information to the Russians. As for the story of the chopped horsehair inserted under the skin of the soles of the feet to hinder the escape of captives, it has been strangely exaggerated by some travellers. I never could hear of more than one prisoner of war who had been thus treated, and this was an army surgeon with whom I had an opportunity of conversing. He had not been previously ill-treated in any way by the mountaineers; but, distracted with the desire for freedom, he had made three attempts to escape, and it was not until the third that the Tcherkesses had recourse to the terrible expedient of the horsehair. During our stay at the waters of the Caucasus, I saw a young Russian woman who had recently been rescued by General Grabe's detachment. Shortly after our arrival she fled, and returned to the mountains. This fact speaks at least in favour of the gallantry of the Circassians. Indeed, there is no one in the country but well knows the deep respect they profess for the sex. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to mention any case in which Russian female prisoners have been maltreated by them.
The Circassians have been accustomed, from time immemorial, to make prisoners of all foreigners who land on their shores without any special warrant or recommendation. This custom has been denounced and censured in every possible way; yet it is not so barbarous as has been supposed. Encompassed by enemies, exposed to incessant attacks, and relying for their defence chiefly on the nature of their country, the jealous care of their independence has naturally compelled the mountaineers to become suspicious, and not to allow any traveller to penetrate their retreats. What proves that this prohibitive measure is by no means the result of a savage temper is, that it is enough to pronounce the name of a chief, no matter who, to be welcomed and treated everywhere with unbounded hospitality. Reassured by this slender evidence of good faith, the mountaineers lay aside their distrust, and think only how they may do honour to the guest of one of their princes.
But another and still graver charge still hangs over the Circassians, namely, their slave dealing, which has so often provoked the generous indignation of the philanthropists of Europe, and for the abolition of which Russia has been extolled by all journalists. We are certainly far from approving of that hateful trade, in which human beings are bought and sold as merchandise; but we are bound in justice to the people of Asia to remark, that there is a wide difference between Oriental slavery and that which exists in Russia, in the French colonies, and in America. In the East, slavery becomes in fact a virtual adoption, which has generally a favourable effect both on the moral and the physical weal of the individual. It is a condition by no means implying any sort of degradation, nor has there ever existed between it and the class of freemen that line of demarcation, beset by pride and prejudice, which is found everywhere else. It would be easy to mention the names of many high dignitaries of Turkey who were originally slaves; indeed, it would be difficult to name one young man of the Caucasus, sold to the Turks, who did not rise to more or less distinction. As for the women, large cargoes of whom still arrive in the Bosphorus in spite of the Russian blockade, they are far from bewailing their lot; on the contrary, they think themselves very fortunate in being able to set out for Constantinople, which offers them a prospect of every thing that can fascinate the imagination of a girl of the East. All this, of course, pre-supposes the absence of those family affections to which we attach so much value; but it must not be forgotten that the tribes of the Caucasus cannot be fairly or soundly judged by the standard of our European notions, but that we must make due allowance for their social state, their manners, and traditions. The sale of women in Circassia is obviously but a substitute and an equivalent for the indispensable preliminaries that elsewhere precede every marriage in the East; with this difference alone, that in the Caucasus, on account of its remoteness, it is an agent who undertakes the pecuniary part of the transaction, and acts as the medium between the girl's relations and him whose lawful wife she is in most cases to become. The parents, it is true, part with their children, and give them up to strangers almost always unknown to them; but they do not abandon them for all that. They keep up a frequent correspondence with them, and the Russians never capture a single Circassian boat in which there are not men and women going to or returning from Constantinople merely to see their children. No one who has been in the Caucasus can be ignorant of the fact that all the families, not excepting even those of high rank, esteem it a great honour to have their children placed out in Turkey. It is to all these relations and alliances, as I may say, between the Circassians and the Turks that the latter owe the great moral influence they still exercise over the tribes of the Caucasus. The name of Turk is always the best recommendation among the mountaineers, and there is no sort of respectful consideration but is evinced towards those who have returned home after passing some years of servitude in Turkey. After all, the Russians themselves think on this subject precisely as we do, and were it not for potent political considerations, they would not by any means offer impediment to the Caucasian slave-trade. This is proved most manifestly by the proposal made by a Russian general in 1843, to regulate and ratify this traffic, and carry it on for the benefit of Russia, by granting the tzar's subjects the exclusive privilege of purchasing Circassian slaves. The scheme was abortive, and could not have been otherwise, for it is a monstrous absurdity to compare Russian slavery with that which prevails in Constantinople. Nothing proves more strongly how different are the real sentiments of the Circassians from those imputed to them, than the indignation with which they regard slavery, such as prevails in Russia. I will here relate an anecdote which I doubt not will appear strange to many persons; but I can guarantee its authenticity, since the fact occurred under my own eyes.
A detachment of mountaineers, destined to form a guard of honour for Paskewitch, passed through Rostof on the Don, in 1838. The sultry season was then at its height, and two of the Circassians, going to bathe, laid their clothes in the boat belonging to the custom-house. There was certainly nothing very reprehensible in this; but the employes of the customs thought otherwise, threw the men's clothes into the river, and assaulted them with sticks. Immediately there was a tremendous uproar; all the mountaineers flocked to the spot, and threatened to set fire to the town, if the amplest satisfaction were not given to their comrades. The inhabitants were seized with alarm, and the director of the customs went in person to the commander of the Circassians, to beseech him not to put his threats in execution; and he backed his entreaties with the offer of a round sum of money for the officer and his men. "Money!" retorted the indignant chieftain; "money! it is good for base-souled, venal Russians! It is good for you, who sell men, women, and children like vile cattle; but among our people, the honour of a man made in the image of God is not bought and sold. Let your men kneel down before my soldiers, and beg their pardon; that is the only reparation we insist on." The chief's demand was complied with, and the peace of the town was immediately restored. The words we have reported are authentic; they prove that the Tcherkesses do not look on the sale of their children as a traffic, and that in the actual state of their national civilisation, that sale cannot be in anywise considered as incompatible with family affections, and the sentiments of honour and humanity.
The Circassian women have been celebrated by so many writers, and their beauty has been made the theme of so many charming descriptions, that we may be allowed to say a few words about them. Unfortunately we are constrained to avow, that the reputation of their charms appears to us greatly exaggerated, and that in person they are much less remarkable than the men. It is true we have not been able to visit any of the great centres of the population: we have not been among the independent tribes; but we have been in several aouls on the banks of the Kouban, and been entertained in a princely family; but nowhere could we see any of those perfect beauties of whom travellers make such frequent mention. The only thing that really struck us in these mountain girls was the elegance of their shape, and the inimitable grace of their bearing. A Circassian woman is never awkward. Dressed in rags or in brocade, she never fails to assume spontaneously the most noble and picturesque attitudes. In this respect she is incontestably superior to the highest efforts of fascination which Parisian art can achieve.
The great celebrity of the women of the Caucasus appears to have been derived from the bazaars of Constantinople, where the Turks, who are great admirers of their charms, still inquire after them with extreme avidity. But as their notions of beauty are quite different from ours, and relate chiefly to plumpness, and the shape of the feet, it is not at all surprising that the opinions of the Turks have misled travellers. But though the Circassian belles do not completely realise the ideal type dreamed of by Europeans, we are far from denying the brilliant qualities with which nature has evidently endowed them. They are engaging, gracious, and affable towards the stranger, and we can well conceive that their charming hospitality has won for them many an ardent admirer.
Apropos of the conjugal and domestic habits of the Circassians; I will describe an excursion I made along the military line of the North, eighteen months after my journey to the Caspian Sea.
During my stay at Ekaterinodar, the capital of the country of the Black Sea Cossacks, I heard a great deal about a Tcherkess prince, allied to Russia, and established on the right bank of the Kouban, a dozen versts from the town. I therefore gladly accepted the proposal made to me by the Attaman Zavadofsky to visit the chief, under the escort of an officer and two soldiers. Baron Kloch, of whom I have already spoken, accompanied me. We mounted our horses, armed to the teeth, according to the invariable custom of the country, and in three hours we alighted in the middle of the aoul. We were immediately surrounded by a crowd of persons whose looks had nothing in them of welcome; but when they were informed that we were not Russians, but foreigners, and that we were come merely to request a few hours' hospitality of their master, their sour looks were changed for an expression of the frankest cordiality, and they hastened to conduct us to the prince's dwelling.
It was a miserable thatched mud cabin, in front of which we found the noble Tcherkess, lying on a mat, in his shirt, and barefooted. He received us in the kindest manner, and after complimenting us on our arrival, he proceeded to make his toilette. He sent for his most elegant garments and his most stylish leg-gear, girded on his weapons, which he took care to make us admire, and then led us into the cabin, which served as his abode during the day. The interior was as naked and unfurnished as it could well be. A divan covered with reed matting, a few vessels, and a saddle, were the only objects visible. After we had rested a few moments, the prince begged us to pay a visit to his wife and daughter, who had been apprised of our arrival, and were extremely desirous to see us.
These ladies occupied a hut of their own, consisting, like the prince's, of but one room. They rose as we entered, and saluted us very gracefully; then motioning us to be seated, the mother sat down in the Turkish fashion on her divan, whilst her daughter came and leaned gracefully against the sofa on which we had taken our places. When the ceremony of reception was over, we remarked with surprise that the prince had not crossed the threshold, but merely put his head in at the door to answer our questions and talk with his wife. Our Cossack officer explained the meaning of this singular conduct, telling us that a Circassian husband cannot, without detriment to his honour, enter his wife's apartment during the day. This rule is rigorously observed in all families that make any pretensions to distinction.
The princess's apartments had a little more air of comfort than her husband's. We found in it two large divans with silk cushions embroidered with gold and silver, carpets of painted felt, several trunks and a very pretty work-basket. A little Russian mirror, and the chief's armorial trophies, formed the ornaments of the walls. But the floor was not boarded, the walls were rough plastered, and two little holes, furnished with shutters, barely served to let a little air into the interior. The princess, who seemed about five-and-thirty or forty, was not fitted to support the reputation of her countrywomen, and we were by no means dazzled by her charms. Her dress alone attracted our attention. Under a brocaded pelisse with short sleeves, and laced on the seams, she wore a silk chemise, open much lower down than decency could approve. A velvet cap trimmed with silver, smooth plaits of hair, cut heart-shape on the forehead, a white veil fastened on the top of the head, and crossing over the bosom, and lastly, a red shawl thrown carelessly over her lap, completed her toilette. As for her daughter, we thought her charming: she was dressed in a white robe, and a red kazavek confined round the waist; she had delicate features, a dazzlingly fair complexion, and her black hair escaped in a profusion of tresses from beneath her cap. The affability of the two ladies exceeded our expectations. They asked us a multitude of questions about our journey, our country, and our occupations. Our European costume interested them exceedingly: our straw hats above all excited their especial wonder. And yet there was something cold and impassive in their whole demeanour. It was not until a long curtain falling by accident shut out the princess from our sight that they condescended to smile. After conversing for a little while, we asked permission of the princess to take her likeness, and to sketch the interior of her dwelling, to which she made no objection. When we had made our drawings, a collation was set before us, consisting of fruits and small cheese-cakes, to which, for my part, I did not do much honour. In the evening we took our leave, and on coming out of the hut, we found all the inhabitants of the aoul assembled, their faces beaming with the most sincere good will, and every man was eager to shake hands with us before our departure. A numerous body volunteered to accompany us, and the prince himself mounted and rode with us half-way to Ekaterinodar, where we embraced like old acquaintances. The Tcherkess chief turned back to his aoul, and it was not without a feeling of regret that we spurred our horses in the direction of the capital of the Black Sea Cossacks.
FOOTNOTES:
[60] For fuller details we refer our readers to the Travels of M. Taitbout de Marigny and of the English agent Bell, and to the works recently published by MM. Fonton and Dubois. There exists also another narrative by Mr. Spencer, which has had the honour of a long analysis in the Revue des Deux Mondes; but we know most positively that the honourable gentleman only made a military promenade along the coasts of the Black Sea, in company with Count Woronzof, and that he never undertook that perilous excursion into Circassia, with which he has filled a whole volume.
Chapter XXXI
RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE WAR IN THE CAUCASUS--VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE CAUCASUS TO RUSSIA--DESIGNS ON INDIA, CENTRAL ASIA, BOKHARA, KHIVA, &C.--RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH COMMERCE IN PERSIA.
The treaty of Adrianople was in a manner the opening of a new era in the relations of Russia with the mountaineers; for it was by virtue of that treaty that the present tzar, already master of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, pretended to the sovereignty of Circassia and of the whole seaboard of the Black Sea. True to the invariable principles of its foreign policy, the government at first employed means of corruption, and strove to seduce the various chiefs of the country by pensions, decorations, and military appointments. But the mountaineers, who had the example of the Persian provinces before their eyes, sternly rejected all the overtures of Russia, and repudiated the clauses of the convention of Adrianople; the political and commercial independence of their country became their rallying cry, and they would not treat on any other condition. All such ideas were totally at variance with Nicholas's schemes of absolute dominion; therefore he had recourse to arms to obtain by force what he had been unable to accomplish by other means.
Abkhasia, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and easily accessible, was the first invaded. A Russian force occupied the country in 1839, under the ordinary pretence of supporting one of its princes, and putting an end to anarchy. In the same year General Paskevitch, then governor-general of the Caucasus, for the first time made an armed exploration of the country of the Tcherkesses beyond the Kouban; but he effected absolutely nothing, and his expedition only resulted in a great loss of men and stores. In the following year war broke out in Daghestan with the Lesghis and the Tchetchenzes. The celebrated Kadi Moulah, giving himself out for a prophet, gathered together a considerable number of partisans; but unfortunately for him there was no unanimity among the tribes, and the princes were continually counteracting each other. Kadi Moulah never was able to bring more than 3000 or 4000 men together; nevertheless, he maintained the struggle with a courage worthy of a better fate, and Russia knows what it cost her to put down the revolt of Daghestan. As for any real progress in that part of the Caucasus, the Russians made none; they did no more than replace things on the old footing. Daghestan soon became again more hostile than ever, and the Tchetchenzes and Lesghis continued in separate detachments to plunder and ravage the adjacent provinces up to the time when the ascendency of the celebrated Shamihl, the worthy successor of Kadi Moulah, gave a fresh impulse to the warlike tribes of the mountain, and rendered them more formidable than ever.
After taking possession of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, the Russians thought of seizing the whole seaboard of Circassia, and especially the various points suitable for the establishment of military posts. They made themselves masters of Guelendchik and the important position of Gagra, which commands the pass between Circassia and Abkhasia. The Tcherkesses heroically defended their territory, but how could they have withstood the guns of the ships of war that mowed them down whilst the soldiers were landing and constructing their redoubts? The blockade of the coasts was declared in 1838, and all foreign communication with the Caucasus ostensibly intercepted. During the four following years Russia suffered heavy losses; and all her successes were limited to the establishment of some small isolated forts on the sea-coast. She then increased her army, laid down the military road from the Kouban to Guelendchik, across the last western offshoot of the Caucasus, set on foot an exploration of the enemy's whole coast, and prepared to push the war with renewed vigour.
In 1837 the Emperor Nicholas visited the Caucasus. He would see for himself the theatre of a war so disastrous for his arms, and try what impression his imperial presence could make on the mountaineers. The chiefs of the country were invited to various conferences, to which they boldly repaired on the faith of the Russian parole; but instead of conciliating them by words of peace and moderation, the emperor only exasperated them by his threatening and haughty language. "Do you know," said he to them, "that I have powder enough to blow up all your mountains?"
During the three following years there was an incessant succession of expeditions. Golovin, on the frontiers of Georgia, Grabe on the north, and Racifsky on the Circassian seaboard, left nothing untried to accomplish their master's orders. The sacrifices incurred by Russia were enormous; the greater part of her fleet was destroyed by a storm, but all efforts failed against the intrepidity and tactics of the mountaineers. Some new forts erected under cover of the ships were all that resulted from these disastrous campaigns. I was in the Caucasus in 1839, when Lieutenant-General Grabe returned from his famous expedition against Shamihl. When the army marched it had numbered 6000 men, 1000 of whom, and 120 officers, were cut off in three months. But as the general had advanced further into the country than any of his predecessors, Russia sang poeans, and Grabe became the hero of the day, although the imperial troops had been forced to retreat and entirely evacuate the country they had invaded. All the other expeditions were similar to this one, and achieved in reality nothing but the burning and destruction of a few villages. It is true the mountaineers are far from being victorious in all their encounters with the Russians, whose artillery they cannot easily withstand; but if they are obliged to give way to numbers or to engineering, nevertheless, they remain in the end masters of the ground, and annul all the momentary advantages gained by their enemies.
The year 1840 was still more fatal to the arms of Nicholas. Almost all the new forts on the seaboard were taken by the Circassians, who bravely attacked and carried the best fortified posts without artillery. The military road from the Kouban to Guelendchik was intercepted, Fort St. Nicholas, which commanded it, was stormed and the garrison massacred. Never yet had Russia endured such heavy blows. The disasters were such that the official journals themselves, after many months' silence, were at last obliged to speak of them, and to try to gloss them over by publishing turgid eulogiums on the heroism of the unfortunate Black Sea garrisons. The following is the bulletin published in the Russian Invalide of the 7th of August, 1840:[61]
"The annals of the Russian army present a multitude of glorious deeds of arms and heroic actions, the memory of which will be for ever preserved among posterity. The detached corps of the Caucasus has from its special destination more frequent opportunities than the other troops to gather new laurels; but there had not yet been seen in its ranks examples of so brilliant a valour as that recently manifested by the garrisons of several campaigning fortifications erected on the unsubjugated territory of the Cossacks of the eastern shores of the Black Sea. Erected with a view to curb the brigandages of those semi-barbarous hordes, and particularly their favourite occupation, the shameful trade in slaves, these fortifications were during the spring of this year the constant objects of their attacks. In hopes to destroy the obstacles raised against them, at a period when by reason of their position, and the insurmountable difficulty of communication, the forts on the seaboard could not receive any aid from without, they united against them all their forces and all their means. And indeed three of these forts fell, but fell with a glory that won for their defenders the admiration and even the respect of their fierce enemies. The valiant efforts of the other garrisons were crowned with better success. They have all withstood the desperate and often-repeated attacks of the mountaineers, and held out unsubdued until it was possible to send them succours.
"In this struggle between a handful of Russian soldiers and a determined and enterprising enemy, ten and even twenty times their superiors in number, the high deeds of the garrisons of the Veliaminof and Michael redoubts, and the defence of forts Navaguinsky and Abinsky, merit particular attention. The first of these redoubts was taken by the mountaineers on the 29th of last February. At daybreak, taking advantage of the localities, and concealed by the morning mist, their bands, more than 7000 strong, approached the entrenchments unperceived, and rushed impetuously to the assault. Repeatedly overthrown, they returned each time furiously to the charge, and after a long conflict finally remained masters of the rampart. The garrison, rejecting all proposals to surrender, continued with invincible courage a combat thenceforth without hope, preferring to find in it a glorious death; and all fell with the exception of some invalid soldiers, who were made prisoners by the mountaineers. The latter, in token of respect for the defenders of the redoubt, took home with them some of them whom there still appeared a chance of saving. The garrison of the Veliaminof redoubt consisted of 400 men of all ranks. The loss of the mountaineers amounted, in killed alone, to 900 men.
"On the morning of the 22nd of March, the mountaineers, to the number of more than 11,000 men, attacked the Michael redoubt, the garrison of which counted but 480 men under arms. Its brave commander, Second-captain Lico, of the battalion No. 5 of the Cossacks of the frontier line of the Black Sea, having learned the intentions of the enemy, had made preparations for vigorously resisting his attempts. Seeing the impossibility of receiving timely succour, he had nails prepared to spike his cannons, in case the rampart should be carried, and had a reduit constructed in the interior of the redoubt, with planks, tubs, and other suitable materials. Then collecting his whole garrison, officers and soldiers, he proposed to them to blow up the powder magazine, if they did not succeed in repulsing the enemy. The proposal was received with an enthusiasm which the subsequent conduct of the garrison proved to be genuine. The mountaineers were received with a most destructive fire by the artillery of the fort, and could not make themselves masters of the rampart until after an hour and half of fighting, in which they suffered considerable loss. The heroic efforts of the garrison having forced them back into the ditch, they took to flight; but the mountain horsemen, who had remained on the watch at a certain distance, fell with their sabres on the fugitives; and the latter, seeing inevitable death on either hand, returned to the assault, drove the garrison from the rampart, and forced it to retire into the reduit, after it had set fire to all the stores and provisions of every kind that were in the redoubt. Sharp-shooting went on for half an hour; the firing then ceased, and the mountaineers were beginning to congratulate themselves on their victory, when the powder magazine blew up.[62] The garrison perished in accomplishing this act, memorable in military annals; but with it perished all the mountaineers who were in the redoubt. The details of the defence of the Veliaminof and Michael redoubts have been divulged by the mountaineers themselves, and by some soldiers who have escaped from slavery among them. The services of the heroes who died thus on the field of honour, have been honoured by his majesty the emperor, in the persons of their families; whose livelihood has been insured, and whose children will be brought up at the expense of the state. These redoubts are now once more occupied by the detachment of troops operating on the eastern coasts of the Black Sea.
"The Navaguinsky fort has often been subjected to the attacks of the mountaineers; but they have always been repulsed with the same valour and steadiness. In one of these attacks, the mountaineers, availing themselves of the darkness of night, and the noise of a tempest, approached the fort without being perceived by the sentinels, surrounded it on all sides, sprang suddenly to the assault with ladders and hooks, made themselves masters of part of the rampart, and got into the fort. Captain Podgoursky, its brave commandant, and Lieutenant Jacovlev, then advanced against them with a part of the garrison. Both were killed on the spot, but their death in no degree checked the ardour of the soldiers, who fell upon the enemy with the bayonet, and drove them into the ditch. The fight was maintained with the same enthusiasm on all the other points of the fortifications, and the invalids themselves voluntarily turned out from the hospital and took part in it. At daybreak, after three hours hard fighting, the fort was cleared of the enemy, who left in it a considerable number of killed and wounded.
"On the 26th of May, the Abinsky fort, situated between the Kouban and the shore of the Black Sea, was surrounded at two in the morning by a body of mountaineers 12,000 strong, who had assembled in the vicinity, and suddenly assaulted the fort with loud shouts, and discharges from their rifles. The hail of bullets, hand-grenades, and grape-shot with which they were received did not check their ardour. Full of temerity and contempt of death, they descended with marvellous promptitude and agility into the ditch, and began to scale the rampart, thus blindly seeking sure destruction. The warriors, clad in coats of mail, penetrated repeatedly into the entrenchment, but were each time killed or driven back. At last, in spite of all the efforts of the garrison, a numerous party found their way into the interior of a bastion, and flung themselves with flags unfurled into the interior of the fort. Colonel Vecelofsky, the commandant, retaining all his presence of mind at this critical moment, charged the enemy at the bayonet point, with a reserve he had kept, of 40 men, and drove them out of the entrenchment, after capturing two of their flags. This brilliant feat checked the audacity of the assailants, and inflamed the courage of the garrison to the highest pitch. The enemy, beaten on all points, took flight, carrying off their dead, according to the custom of the Asiatics. Ten of their wounded remained in the hands of the garrison, who found 685 dead in the interior of the fort and in the ditches. The number of those whom the mountaineers carried off to bury at home, was doubtless still more considerable. The loss on our side was nine killed and eighteen wounded.
"At the time of the attack, the garrison of the Abinsky fort consisted of a superior officer, fifteen officers, and 676 soldiers. The numerical weakness of this force, proves of itself the extraordinary intrepidity of all comprised in it, officers and soldiers, and their unanimous resolution to defend with unswerving firmness the ramparts confided to their courage."
It seems to us superfluous to offer any comment on this heroic bulletin. We shall merely observe, that the most serious losses, the destruction of the new road from the Kouban, the taking of fort St. Nicholas, and that of several other forts, have been entirely forgotten in the official statement, and no facts mentioned, but those which might be interpreted in favour of Russia's military glory.
On the eastern side of the mountain the war was fully as disastrous for the invaders. The imperial army lost 400 petty officers and soldiers, and twenty-nine officers in the battle of Valrik against the Tchetchenzes. The military colonies of the Terek were attacked and plundered, and when General Golovin retired to his winter quarters at the end of the campaign, he had lost more than three-fourths of his men.
The Great Kabarda did not remain an indifferent spectator of the offensive league formed by the tribes of the Caucasus; and when Russia, suspecting with reason the unfriendly disposition of some tribes, made an armed exploration on the banks of the Laba in order to construct redoubts, and thus cut off the subjugated tribes from the others, the general found the country, wherever he advanced, but a desert. All the inhabitants had already retired to the other side of the Laba to join their warlike neighbours.
Since that time fresh defeats have been made known through the press, and in spite of all the mystery in which the war of the Caucasus is sought to be wrapt, the truth has, nevertheless, transpired. The last military operations of Russia have been as unproductive as those that preceded them, and prove that no change has taken place in the belligerents respectively. Thus we see that in despite of the resources of the empire, and of the indomitable obstinacy of the emperor, the position of Russia in the Caucasus has been quite stationary for sixty years.
In considering this long series of disasters and unavailing efforts, we are naturally led to inquire what have been the causes of this want of success? We have already mentioned the topographical character of the country, and the difficulties encountered by an invading army in regions not accessible by the valleys, and we have given such details of the manners and character of the mountaineers as may enable the reader to conceive the obstinate and formidable nature of their resistance. Nevertheless, seeing the absolute power of Nicholas, and the intense importance he attaches to the conquest of the Caucasus, it is difficult to admit that obstacles arising out of the nature of the ground and the character of the population could not have been overcome in a region so limited, if there were not other and more potent causes continually at work to impede the military operations of Russia. These causes reside chiefly in the deplorable state and constitution of the imperial armies.
In Russia there is no distinct commissariat department under disinterested control, whether of the government or of superior officers. It is the colonel himself of each regiment who provides the rations, and as he is subject to no control, but acts really with despotic authority, both he and his contractors have the amplest possible opportunity to cheat the government and enrich themselves at the expense of the troops. There are regiments in the Caucasus that bring in from 80,000 to 100,000 francs to the colonel. As for the subaltern officers, military submission on the one hand, and the scantiness of their pay on the other, make them always ready to participate in their commander's infamous speculations. What is the result of this wretched corruption? It is that, notwithstanding the high prices paid by the government, the contractors continue to send to the Caucasus the most unwholesome stores, and grains almost always heated or quite spoiled; for it is only in this way they can realise sufficient profits to be able to satisfy the cupidity of their confederates, the officers. I knew several merchants of Theodosia in the Crimea, men of honour, who refused to have any thing to do with military supplies, because they found it impossible to make the colonels and generals accept sound articles.
This official robbery is nowhere carried on in a more scandalous manner than in the Caucasus. It is there regularly established, and one may conjecture the hardships and privations of the soldier from seeing the luxurious tables of the lowest officers, most of whom have but from 1000 or 1200 rubles yearly pay. Certainly there are few sovereigns who take more heed than Nicholas to the physical welfare of their soldiers, and we must give full credit to his generous intentions in this respect; but these are completely defeated by the corruption of his officers and civil servants, by the total want of publicity, and by that base servility which will always hinder an inferior from accusing his superior. I have been present at several military inspections made by general officers in the Caucasus, but never heard the least complaint made by the soldiers; and when the general, calling them by companies round him in a circle, questioned them respecting their victuals, they all invariably replied in chorus, that they had nothing to complain of, and were as well treated as possible. Their colonel's eye was upon them, and they knew what the least word of complaint would have cost them; yet they were dying by hundreds of scurvy, and other diseases engendered by unwholesome food.
The government usually makes large purchases of butter in Siberia for the army of the Caucasus; but this butter which would be of such great utility in the military hospitals, and which costs as much as sixty-five francs the twenty kilogrammes, very seldom passes further than Taganrok, where it is sold in retail, and its place supplied with the worst substitute that can be had. Nor does the robbery end there. The butter fabricated in Taganrok is again made matter of speculation in the Caucasus, and finally not a particle reaches the sick and drooping soldiers. The other good provisions undergo nearly the same course.
When I was at Theodosia in 1840, there were in the military hospital of the town 15,000 invalids, who were all dying for want of attendance and good medicine. A Courland general (whom I could name) justly incensed at these abuses, sent in a strong report of them directly to the emperor; and twenty days afterwards, a superior officer, despatched by the emperor himself, arrived on the spot. But the people about the hospital were rich; they had taken their measures, and the result of this mission, which looked so threatening at first, was a report extremely satisfactory as to the zeal of the managers and the sanatory condition of the establishment. The general was severely reprimanded, almost disgraced, and the robbers continued to merit official encomiums. I did not hear that they were rewarded by the government.
The most frightful mortality prevails among the troops in the Caucasus; whole divisions disappear in the space of a few months, and the army is used up and wholly renewed every three or four years. It is especially in the small forts on the seaboard, where the mischiefs of bad food are increased by almost total isolation, that diseases make frightful havoc, particularly scurvy. In the spring of 1840, the twelfth division marched to occupy the redoubts on the coasts of Circassia, and its effective number was 12,000 men, quite an extraordinary circumstance. Four months afterwards it was recalled to take part in the expedition at that time projected against the Viceroy of Egypt. When it landed at Sevastopol it was reduced to 1500 men. In the same year the commander-in-chief, in visiting the forts of the seaboard, found but nine men fit for service out of 300 that composed the garrison of Soukhoum Kaleh. According to official returns, the average deaths on the seaboard of Circassia in 1841 and 1842, were 17,000 in each year.
Is it to be wondered that with such a military administration, Russia makes no progress in the Caucasus? What can be expected of armies in which want of all necessaries and total disregard for the lives of men are the order of the day? The divisions and regiments in the Caucasus are in a state of permanent disorganisation, and the courage and activity of the troops sink altogether under the influence of the diseases by which they are incessantly mowed down. It needs all the force of discipline, all the stoic self-denial of the soldier, and, above all, the incessant renovation of the garrisons, to hinder the Russians from being driven out of all their positions.
People often ask with surprise why Russia does not take the field with 200,000 or even 300,000 men at once. We have already given sufficiently circumstantial details on the topography of the Caucasus, to enable every one to perceive immediately how difficult it is to employ large armies in regions so inaccessible, and so wonderfully defended by nature. Nor, on the other hand, must it be forgotten that the official strength of the army of the Caucasus is always at least 160,000 men. Its real strength, indeed, very seldom exceeds 80,000; but its proportion to the grand total of the imperial forces, paid as if they were at the full, still remains the same, and it is impossible, under existing circumstances, that the government should augment the number of its troops without most seriously increasing the already embarrassed condition of the finances. Another consideration of still greater weight is, that the movements of large armies are attended with extreme difficulty in Russia, to a degree unknown in any other country of Europe. In all the discussions that are held on the subject of the war in the Caucasus, the immense difficulties of the transport of men, military stores, and provisions, have never been taken into account, and people have always reasoned as if the Caucasus was situated in the midst of the tzar's dominions. A glance at the map of Russia will suffice to show, that those mountains lying on the most southern verge of the empire, are separated by real deserts from the great centres of the Russian population, and that to repair to the banks of the Kouban from the first governments where troops are recruited, they must traverse more than 150 leagues of country inhabited by Cossacks and Kalmucks, in which the nature of the soil and of the inhabitants forbids any cantonment of reserves.
Moreover we must not forget the difficulties of the climate. The fine season barely lasts four months in Russia. The roads are impassable for pedestrians in spring and autumn, and during the winter the cold is too severe, the days too short, the snow-storms often too prolonged to allow of putting regiments on the march, not to say sending them to the Caucasus across the uncultivated and desert plains that stretch between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian. The route by sea is equally impracticable. No use can be made of the Caspian on account of the arid and unproductive steppes that belt it on the Russian side. Astrakhan, the only town situated on that part of the coast, is obliged to fetch its provisions from a distance of 200 leagues. The Black Sea is, indeed, more favourably circumstanced; but it only affords communication with the forts on the Circassian side; and the mountaineers always wait to make their attacks in the season of rough weather, during which navigation is usually suspended, and it is exceedingly difficult to reinforce and victual the garrisons. The tediousness and difficulty of conveying stores is the same by land. With the exception of the forts of Circassia, supplied directly from the ports of Odessa, Theodosia, and Kertch, all the garrisons of the Caucasus receive their supplies from the nearly central provinces of the empire. Thus the materials destined for the army of the Terek and of Daghestan arrive first in Astrakhan, after a voyage of more than 200 leagues down the Volga; and then they are forwarded by sea for the most part to Koumskaia, on the mouth of the Kouma, where they are taken up by the Turcomans on their little ox-carts, impressed for the service, and reach their final destination after fifteen or twenty days' travelling. The mode of proceeding is still more tedious and expensive for the implements and materiel of war which arrive from Siberia only once a year, during the spring floods of the Volga, the Don, and the Dniepr. Such obstacles render it impossible to augment the forces employed on the Caucasus. France is infinitely better circumstanced with regard to Algeria. We have nothing to prevent our keeping up strong military stations on the Mediterranean shore. We can at any moment command the means of rapidly transporting to Africa whatever forces may be required by ordinary or unforeseen circumstances. We will by and by return to the war in Algeria, as compared with that which the Russians are carrying on in the Caucasus.
We have yet to speak of another cause of weakness to the Russian arms, and one which is the more serious as it operates exclusively on the moral of the soldiers. Russia has made the Caucasus a place of transportation, a regular Botany Bay for all the rogues in the empire, and for those who by their acts or their political opinions, have incurred the wrath of the tzar. In reference to this subject, we will mention a fact which may seem hard to believe, but which I attest as an eye-witness. In 1840, the fifteenth division, commanded by Lieutenant-General S----, received orders to march to the Caucasus. On leaving Taganrok, it was about 1200 short of its complement, and its deficiency was supplied from the prisons of southern Russia. Robbers, pickpockets, vagabonds, and soldiers that had been flogged and degraded, were marched into Taganrok, and incorporated with the regiments which were about to begin the campaign. These singular recruits were put under the keeping of the soldiers, and each of them, according to his supposed degree of rascality, was guarded by two, three, or four men. Surely the moral of the Russian troops is sufficiently jeopardised by the social and military institutions of the empire, and it cannot be prudent so deeply to debase the soldier by associating him with thieves and highway robbers, and to change the toilsome wars of the Caucasus into a means of punishment, I may say of destruction, for political offenders and real criminals. Furthermore, a conflict so prolonged, so disastrous, and that for so many years has been without any tangible result, must inevitably have the worst effect on the minds of troops who are not actuated either by the sense of glory or honour, or by the feeling that they are defending the right. We have visited the Caucasus at various times, and never did we meet one officer who was heartily attached to the service in which he was engaged. Despondency is universal, and many expeditions against the mountaineers have been marked by a total absence of discipline. The soldiers have often refused to march, and have suffered themselves to be massacred by their officers, rather than advance a foot.
The Caucasus has also become a place of exile for a great number of Poles. After the revolution of 1831, the Russian government committed the blunder of sending to the Kouban most of the regiments compromised in that ill-fated effort. The result was very easy to foresee; desertion soon began in the ranks of the outlaws, and it is now known beyond a doubt that the Tcherkesses have Poles among them, who instruct them in the art of war, endeavour to create an artillery for them with the pieces captured from the Russians, and labour actively to allay the dissensions between the various tribes. General Grabe himself assured me that he had seen in several places fortifications which he recognised as quite modern. He had also in his campaign of 1840 remarked a more compact and better concerted resistance on the part of the Circassians, and often a remarkable degree of combined action in their attacks.
We have not much to say about the military tactics employed by Russia in this war; in point of science it presents no very striking features, but on the contrary, cannot but give a very low idea of the merit of the imperial generals. At first it was expected that the conquest would be effected by hemming in the mountaineers with military lines, and gradually encroaching on their territory; but this very costly system seems to me quite impracticable in a country in which the forts are always solitary, and cannot protect each other, or cross their fires. I do not know, however, whether it has been quite given up.
Attempts were made in 1837 to set fire to the forests of the Caucasus by means of pitch. Three years afterwards it was hoped to effect their destruction by arming the men of the 15th division with axes; but these strange expedients only produced useless expenditure. I know a general of the highest personal courage, who calls in the aid of natural philosophy to beguile or awe the mountaineers. Whenever he receives a visit from chiefs whose fidelity he is inclined to suspect, he sets an electrical machine in play. His visitors feel violent shocks, they know not how, their beards and hair stand on end, and in the bewilderment caused by these mysterious visitations, they sometimes let out an important secret, and betray themselves to their enemy.
An officer of engineers told me an anecdote of this same general which is worth recording. A mosque which the Russian government had built at its own expense for a tribe of Little Kabarda was to be inaugurated, and as usual there was a grand military parade in honour of the occasion. When the Kabardians had displayed all their address in horsemanship and shooting, the Russian general proceeded to give a sample of what he could do, and to strike the assembled tribes with amazement. He called for his double-barrelled gun, and having himself charged one of the barrels with ball, he ordered a pigeon to be let loose, which he instantly brought down, to the astonishment of the beholders. "That is not all," said he to the chiefs near him; "to shoot a pigeon flying is no very extraordinary feat; but to cut off his head with the ball is what I call good shooting." Then turning to his servant, he said something to him in German. The man went and picked up the bird, and when he held it out to view, it was seen to be beheaded just as the general had said. Unbounded was the admiration of the simple mountaineers; they looked on the general as a supernatural being, and nothing was talked of for many a day in the aouls, but the beheaded pigeon and the wonderful Russian marksman.
Now to explain the enigma. The inhabitants of the Caucasus are ignorant of the use of small shot, and it was with this the general had accomplished his surprising exploit, having previously loaded one barrel with it. As for the pigeon's head, it was adroitly whipped off by the servant, who had received his orders to that effect in German.
But it would be idle to expect that the shrewd good sense of the mountaineers will long be imposed on by the scientific accomplishments of the Russian generals; on the contrary, these curious expedients only give them increased confidence in their own strength. Yermoloff appears to us to have been the only governor who understood the nature of the war in the Caucasus, and who conducted affairs with the dignified and inflexible vigour which were fitted to make an impression on the tribes. Several commanders-in-chief have succeeded him in turns: Rosen, Golovin, Grabe, Raiefsky, Anrep, Neughart; but the government has gained nothing by all these changes.
After the details we have given, comments and arguments would be almost superfluous: it is easy to conceive how critical is the situation of the Russians in the Caucasian regions. For twenty years the Emperor Nicholas has expended all the military genius of his empire, shrinking from no sacrifice of men or money, and employing generals of the highest reputation, and yet the might of his sovereign will has broken down before the difficulties we have pointed out. The tribes of the mountain are, on the contrary, growing stronger every day. They are making progress in the art of war; success fires their zeal; the old intestine discords are gradually disappearing, and the various tribes seem to feel the necessity of acting in concert, and uniting under one banner. Now can Russia, under existing circumstances, increase her chances of success? We think not, and the facts sufficiently corroborate our opinion. With his system of war and absolute dominion, the tzar has entangled himself in a hopeless maze, and the Caucasus will long remain a running sore to the empire, a bottomless pit to swallow up many an army and much treasure. It has often been proposed to renounce the present system, but the emperor's vanity will not admit of any pacific counsels. Besides, even if Russia were now willing to change the nature of her relations with the independent tribes, she could not do so. Her overtures would be regarded as tokens of weakness, and the mountaineers would only become so much the more enterprising.
In Alexander's time, when warlike ideas were less in favour, it was proposed to establish a commercial intercourse with the Tcherkesses, and bring them gradually by pacific means to acknowledge the supremacy of Russia. A Genoese, named Scassi, proposed in 1813 to the Duc de Richelieu, governor of Odessa, a plan for a commercial settlement on the coasts of Circassia. His scheme was adopted, and a merchant vessel touched soon afterwards at Guelendchik and Pchiat, without meeting with any hindrance on the part of the inhabitants. A trade was soon established, but the disorderly conduct of the Russians aroused the jealousy of the Circassians, who soon burned and destroyed the factory at Pchiat, and the government, whether justly or not, treated Scassi as a culprit. Since that time there has been no thought of commerce or pacification, and the tribes of the Caucasus have been regarded only as rebels to be put down, not as a free people justly jealous of their privileges. Frequent conferences have taken place between the Russian generals and the mountain chiefs; but as the one party talked only of liberty and independence, and the other of nothing but submission and implicit obedience, hostilities always broke out again with fresh vehemence. It appears, however, from facts recently communicated to me, that the emperor is at last disposed to give up his warlike system, and that his generals have at last received orders to act only on the defensive.[63] But as the government, whilst adopting these new measures, still loudly proclaims its rights of sovereignty over the Caucasus, it follows that this change of policy is quite illusory, and cannot effect any kind of reconciliation between the Russians and the mountaineers.
We now come to the point at which we may advert to a question which set the whole English press in a blaze in 1837; namely, the blockade of the Circassian coasts, and the pretensions of Russia as to that part of the Caucasus. It is evident that the tzar's government being at open war with the mountaineers, may at its pleasure intercept the foreign trade with the enemy's country. This is an incontestible right recognised by all nations, and the capture of the Vixen was not worth the noise that was made about it. As to the proprietary right to the country which Russia affects to have received from Turkey, through the treaty of Adrianople, it is totally fallacious, and is unsupported by any historical document or positive fact. It is fully demonstrated that Turkey never possessed any right over Circassia; she had merely erected on the seaboard, with the consent of the inhabitants, the two fortresses of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, for the protection of the trade between the two countries. Russia herself, in the beginning, publicly acknowledged this state of things; and the evidence of her having done so is to be found in the general depot of the maps of the empire. Chance threw into my hands a map of the Caucasus, drawn up by the Russian engineers, long prior to the treaty of Adrianople. The Turkish possessions are distinctly marked on it, and defined by a red boundary line; they consist solely, as we have just stated, of the two fortresses on the coast. This map, the existence of which one day sorely surprised Count Voronzof (governor-general of New Russia), was sent to England, and deposited in the Foreign Office during Lord Palmerston's administration. After all, I hardly know why Russia tries to avail herself of the treaty of Adrianople as a justification in the eyes of Europe of her schemes of conquest in the Caucasus. She is doing there only what we are doing in Algeria, and the English in India, and indeed with still greater reason; for, as we shall presently see, the possession of the Caucasus is a question vitally affecting her interests in her trans-Caucasian provinces, and her ulterior projects respecting the regions dependent on Persia and Central Asia.
Here are the terms in which this subject is handled in a report printed at St. Petersburg, and addressed to the emperor after the expedition of General Emmanuel towards the Elbrouz, in 1829:
"The Tcherkesses bar out Russia from the South, and may at their pleasure open or close the passage to the nations of Asia. At present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that according to traditions religiously preserved among them, the sway of their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. They believe that a mighty people, descended from their ancestors, and whose existence is corroborated by the ruins of Madjar, has once already overrun the fine plains adjacent to the Danube, and finally settled in Pannonia. Add to this consideration their superiority in arms. Perfect horsemen, extremely well armed, inured to war by the continual freebooting they exercise against their neighbours, courageous, and disdaining the advantages of our civilisation, the imagination is appalled at the consequences which their union under one leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong."
Reflections like these, printed in St. Petersburg, can leave no doubt as to the dangers to which the southern provinces are exposed. They are not to be mistaken, and the government sees them clearly: the aggressive independence of the Caucasus is perilous to all Russia. Armed, courageous, and enterprising as they are, the mountaineers need only some degree of union among their chiefs, to carry the flames of revolt over a vast portion of the tzar's dominions.
Let any one look fairly and impartially at the immense region comprised between the Danube and the Caspian, and what will he behold? To the east 40,000 tents of Khirghis, Turcomans, and Kalmucks, robbed of all their ancient rights, or threatened with the loss of the remnant yet left them of their independence; in the centre 800,000 Cossacks bound to the most onerous military service, tormented by the recollection of their suppressed constitutions, and detesting a government whose efforts tend to extinguish every trace of their nationality; in the south and west the Tatars of the Crimea and the Sea of Azof, and the Bessarabians, who are far from being favourable to Russia; and lastly, beyond the Caucasus, in Asia, restless populations, ill-broken as yet to the Russian yoke, and possessions with which there exists no overland communication except that by way of Mozdok, a dangerous route, which cannot be traversed without an escort of infantry and artillery, and which the mountaineers may at any moment intercept.[64] Here, assuredly, are causes enough of disorganisation and ruin, that want only a man of genius to set them in action. What wonder is it that with such contingencies to apprehend, the empire recoils from no sacrifice!
No one, we believe, will deny the schemes of conquest which the Muscovite government entertains regarding Turkey, Persia, and even certain regions of India: these schemes are incontestible, and have long been matter of history. The fact being admitted, what is the position most favourable for these vast plans of aggrandisement? We have but to glance at the map to answer immediately: the regions beyond the Caucasus. There it is that Russia is in contact at once with the Caspian and the Black Sea, with Persia and Turkey; from thence she can with the same army dictate laws to the Sultan of Constantinople, and to the Shah of Teheran; and there her diplomacy finds an ample field to work, and continual pretexts to justify fresh encroachments. But this formidable position will never be truly and securely possessed by the tzars until the tribes of the Caucasus shall have been subjugated.
When the empire acquired all those Asiatic provinces, its situation as to the Caucasus was far from being so critical as it now is. It is, in fact, only within the last fourteen or fifteen years that the fierce struggle has raged between Muscovite domination and the freedom of the mountain. I therefore much doubt that Russia would now venture to act towards Persia as she did in the time of Catherine II., and her successors. Her hostile attitude has been strikingly modified since she has had in her rear a foe so active and dangerous as the Caucasians. This is a consideration that may ease the minds of the English as to their possessions in India, for the road by Herat and Affghanistan will not be so very soon open to their rivals. There can be no question then respecting the great importance of the Caucasus to Russia. The independence of the mountaineers is perilous to her southern governments, compromises the safety and the future destiny of the trans-Caucasian provinces, and at the same time fetters and completely paralyses the ambition of the tzar. It is in this sense the question is likewise regarded by the court of Teheran, which now builds its whole hope of safety on the entanglements of Russia in the Caucasus.
And now let us ask what is the work which Russia is doing beyond the Caucasus for the advantage or detriment of mankind? What, independently of her ambition and her tendencies, is the influence she is called to exercise over the actual and future lot of the nations she has subjected to her sway? It must be admitted that when the imperial armies appeared for the first time on the confines of Asia, the trans-Caucasian provinces were abandoned without defence or hope for the future to all the sanguinary horrors of anarchy. Turkey, Persia, and the mountain tribes rioted in the plunder of Georgia and the adjacent states. The advent of the Russians put an end to this sad state of things, and introduced a condition of peace and quiet unknown for many centuries before. The imperial government, it is true, brought with it its vices, its abuses, its vexations, and its hosts of greedy and plundering functionaries; and then, when the first heyday of delight at the enjoyment of personal safety was past, the inhabitants had other hardships to deplore. Nevertheless, the depredations committed by its functionaries will never prevent the inevitable tendency of the Muscovite occupation to bring about an intellectual development, which, soon or late, will act most favourably on the future condition of those Asiatic regions. Christian populations, so active and enterprising as are those of the trans-Caucasian provinces, will infallibly begin a career of social improvement from the moment they find themselves released from the engrossing care of defending their bodily existence. Of course it will need many years to mature a movement which derives no aid from the too superficial and corrupt civilisation of Russia; nor has any thing worth mentioning been done as yet to promote the industry, commerce, and agriculture of a country, which only needs some share of freedom to be productive. Tiflis is far from having fulfilled the prophecy of Count Gamba, in 1820, and become a second Palmyra or Alexandria; on the contrary, every measure has been adopted that could extinguish the very germs of the national wealth. But humanity, mysterious in its ways, and slow in its progress, seldom keeps pace with the impatience of nations; and notwithstanding the new evils that in our day afflict the trans-Caucasian populations, we are convinced that it was a grand step in advance for them to have been withdrawn from the anarchical sway of Persia and Turkey, and to have had the personal safety of their inhabitants secured by the intervention and authority of Russia.[65]
The conquest of India by the Russians has often been the theme of long discussions and elaborate hypotheses. England was very uneasy at the attempts on Khiva, and never meets with a single difficulty in Affghanistan without ascribing it to Muscovite agents. It is, therefore, worth while to consider what are the means and facilities at the command of Russia for the establishment of her dominion in the centre of Turkistan and on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges.
Three points of departure and three routes present themselves to Russia for the invasion of Central Asia. On the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, Manghishlak, Tuk Karakhan, and the Bay of Balkhan, communicate with Khiva by caravan routes; Orenburg to the north is in pretty regular communication with Khiva and Bokhara; and to the south the Caspian provinces trade with Affghanistan either by way of Meshed, Bokhara, and Balkh, or by Meshed, Bokhara, and Candahar.
The first line that was taken by a Russian expedition was that from Tuk Kharakhan to Khiva. Prince Alexander Bekovitch was sent by Peter the Great to explore certain regions of the Khanat of Khiva, which were supposed to contain rich gold mines, and landed on the Caspian shore with about 3,000 men. The result was disastrous; but the details are too well known to need repetition here. No new demonstration has since been made in that direction, and it appears to have been with good reason abandoned entirely. The eastern shores of the Caspian have been sufficiently explored to make it clear that they cannot be made the starting point of military operations against Turkistan. From the mouth of the Emba to the vicinity of Astrabad, the shore is without a river; and the whole seaboard, as well as the regions between the Caspian and Khiva, with the exception of a very small tract occupied by the Balkhan mountains, presents only barren desert plains, without water, occupied by nomade Turcomans, and affording no resources to an invading army. "This country," says Mouravief, "exhibits the image of death, or rather of the desolation left behind by a mighty convulsion of nature. Neither birds nor quadrupeds are found in it; no verdure or vegetation cheers the sight, except here and there at long intervals some spots on which there grow a few sickly stunted shrubs." It is reckoned that on an average a caravan employs from twenty-eight to thirty-five days of camel-marching to complete the distance of about two hundred leagues that divides Tuk Karakhan from Khiva. The journey is not quite so long from the Bay of Balkhan. This was the route taken by Captain Mouravief when he was sent by Yermolof to the Khan of Khiva, to propose to him an alliance with Russia. It would certainly be hard to conceive any conditions more unfavourable for an expedition towards the interior than are presented by this part of the coast. On the one side is the Caspian Sea, the navigation of which is at all times difficult, and in winter impossible; on the other side more than a month's march through the desert; and then on the coast itself there is a total impossibility of cantoning a reserved force. Under these circumstances, all schemes of conquest in this direction must be chimerical. The Russians no doubt might, by a clever coup-de-main, push forwards some thousands of men on Khiva, and take the town; but what would they gain thereby? How could they victual their troops; or how could they establish any safe line of transport across deserts traversed by flying hordes of warlike plunderers? Russia could not possibly dispense with a series of fortified posts to keep up a regular communication with her army of occupation, and how could she erect and maintain such posts in a naked and wholly unproductive country? The government has already tried to establish some small forts on the north-eastern shore of the Caspian, for the protection of its fisheries, against the Khirghis; but to this day it has effected nothing thereby, but the useless destruction of many thousands of its soldiers, who have perished under the most cruel hardships. Furthermore, the Khanat of Khiva, the state nearest the imperial frontiers, is but a very small part of Turkistan; nor would its occupation help in more than a very limited degree towards the conquest of Bokhara, and a fortiori towards that of Affghanistan.
After the line from the eastern coast of the Caspian, that from Orenburg to Khiva and Bokhara appears to have attracted the particular attention of the tzars. But General Perofsky's fruitless expedition against Khiva, in 1840, has demonstrated that this line is quite as perilous and difficult as the other. The steppes that lie between Russia and the two khanats are exactly similar to those situated north and east of the Caspian, presenting the same nakedness and sterility, an almost total want of fresh water, and nomade tribes perpetually engaged in rapine. When State Councillor Negri was sent on an embassy to the Khan of Bokhara, in 1820, he set out accompanied by 200 Cossacks, 200 infantry, twenty-five Bashkir horsemen, two pieces of artillery, 400 horses, and 358 camels. The government afforded him every possible facility and means of transport, and he took with him more than two months' rations for his men and cattle. Yet though he met with no obstruction on the part of the hordes whose steppes he traversed, he was not less than seventy-one days in completing the journey of 1600 kilometres (1000 miles) from Orenburg to Bokhara.
Perofsky, who marched at the head of 6000 infantry, with 10,000 baggage camels, could not even reach the territory of Khiva. The disasters suffered by his troops obliged him to retrace his steps without having advanced further than Ac Boulak, the last outpost erected by the Russians in 1839, at 180 kilometres from the Emba. The obstacles encountered by his small army were beyond all description. The cold was fearful, being 40 degrees below zero of the centigrade thermometer; the camels could scarcely advance through the snow; and the movements of the troops were constantly impeded by hurricanes of extraordinary violence. Such an expedition, undertaken in the depth of winter, solely for the purpose of having fresh water, may enable one to guess at the difficulties of a march over the same ground in summer. Spring is a season unknown in all those immense plains of southern Russia; intense frost is there succeeded abruptly by tropical heat, and a fortnight is generally sufficient to dry up the small streams and the stagnant waters produced by the melting of the snows, and to scorch up the thin coating of pasturage that for a brief while had covered the steppes. What chance then has Russia of successfully invading Turkistan from the north, and reigning supreme over Bokhara, which is separated from Orenburg by 400 leagues of desert? All that has been done, and all that has been observed up to this day, proves that the notion is preposterous. As for any compact and amity between Russia and the numerous Kirghis hordes, such as might favour the march of the imperial armies in Bokhara, no such thing is to be expected. A great deal has been said of the Emperor Alexander's journey to Orenburg in 1824, and the efforts then made by the government to conciliate the Kirghis; but these proceedings have been greatly exaggerated, and represented as much more important than they really were. They have not produced any substantial result, and I know from my own experience how hostile to Russia are all the roving tribes of the Caspian, and how much they detest whatever menaces their freedom and independence.
We have now to consider in the last place the two great Persian routes, which coincide, or run parallel, with each other, as far as Meshed, where they branch off to Bokhara on the one hand, and on the other to Cabul by Herat and Candahar. The former of these routes, travelled over by Alexander Burnes, seems to us totally impracticable. The distance to Bokhara from Teheran (which we will assume for the starting point, though it is still the capital of Persia) is not less than 500 leagues; and it cannot reasonably be supposed possible to effect, and above all to preserve, a conquest so remote, when in order to reach the heart of the coveted country, it is necessary to traverse the vast deserts north of Meshed, occupied by nomade hordes, which are the more formidable, inasmuch as no kind of military tactics can be brought to bear on them. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the occupation of Bokhara by no means infers that of Affghanistan. The distance from the former to Cabul is more than 250 leagues. The regions between the two towns are indeed less sterile and easier to traverse; but, on the other hand, an army marching towards India would have to penetrate the dangerous passes of the high mountain chain between Turkistan and Affghanistan, which are defended by the most indomitable tribes of Central Asia. Here would be repeated those struggles in which Russia has been vainly exhausting her strength for so many years in the Caucasus.[66] In truth, in presence of such obstacles, of ground, climate, population, and distance, all discussion becomes superfluous, and the question must appear decided in the negative by every impartial man who possesses any precise notions as to the regions of Western Asia.
There remains the route by Meshed, Herat, and Candahar. This is incontestably the one which presents fewest difficulties; yet we doubt that it can ever serve the ambitious views attributed to Russia. Along the line from Teheran to Herat lie important centres of agricultural populations; villages are found on it surrounded by a fertile and productive soil. But these advantages, besides being very limited, are largely counterbalanced by uncultivated plains destitute of water which must be traversed in passing from one inhabited spot to another, and by the obstacles of all kinds which would be subsequently encountered in a march through the deserts of Affghanistan, the warlike tribes of which are much more formidable even than the Turcomans who infest the route from Teheran to Herat. Besides, as it is nearly 600 leagues from the capital of Persia to the centre of Affghanistan, it is exceedingly unlikely that Russia will ever succeed in subjugating a country in which its armies could only arrive by a military road maintained and defended through so huge a space.
No doubt the way would be considerably smoothed for Russia along both the Candahar and the Bokhara lines, if by gradually extending the circle of her conquests she had brought the inhabitants of Khorasan and Turkistan to obey her. But there are obstacles to the achievement of this preliminary task which the empire is not by any means competent to surmount, nor will it be so for a very long time to come. To say nothing of climate, soil, and distance, all the tribes in question are animated with a hatred and aversion for Russia, which will long neutralise the projects of the tzars. We often hear of the great influence exercised by the cabinet of St. Petersburg at Khiva, Bokhara, and Cabul; but we believe it to be greatly exaggerated, and the history of the various Muscovite embassies proves most palpably that it is so. What did Negri and Mouravief effect at Khiva and Bokhara? They were both received with the most insulting distrust, prevented from holding any communication with the natives, and watched with a strictness which is only employed against an enemy. Mouravief even went near to pay for his embassy with his head. Was Russia more fortunate at Cabul? We think not. The remoteness of her dominions may cause her agents to be received with some degree of favour, especially at a time when the sovereign of Cabul finds himself exposed to the hostility of England. Yet it is not the less true that any serious attempt of Russia on Turkistan and the eastern regions of Persia would suddenly arouse the animosity of the Affghans and all their neighbours. We readily admit that the imperial government has it in its power, by its advice and its intrigues, to exercise a certain influence at Cabul, to the detriment of England; but that this influence can ever serve the extension of the Muscovite sway is what we utterly deny, knowing as we do the intense and unmitigable aversion to Russia which is felt by all the natives of Asia.
The conquests of Alexander the Great and of Genghis Khan have often been appealed to as proving how easy it would be for the tzars to follow in the footsteps of those great captains. Such language bespeaks on the part of the writers who have put it forth the most profound ignorance of the actual condition of the places and the inhabitants. When Alexander marched towards Bactriana to subjugate the last possessions of Persia, he left behind him rich and fertile countries, important Greek colonies, and nations entirely subdued; moreover, he marched at the head of an army consisting of natives of the south, possessing all the qualifications necessary for warfare in the latitudes of Central Asia. Furthermore, at that period the provinces of the Oxus contained numerous rich and flourishing towns, with inhabitants living in luxury, and little capable of resistance. Nevertheless, in spite of all the facilities and all the supplies which the country then offered to an invading army, its physical conformation, broken and bounded by deserts both on the north and on the south, seems to have aided the efforts of its defenders to a remarkable degree. It was in fact in this remote part of Persia that the conqueror of Darius had to fight many a battle for the establishment of his transient sway. The same circumstances marked his march to India. Invasions have become still more difficult since his day, for all those regions once occupied by wealthy and agricultural nations have been ravaged and turned into deserts; scarcely do there exist a few traces of the ancient towns, and the populations subdued by Alexander have been succeeded by hordes of Khirgis, Turcomans, and Affghans, who would be for the Russians what the Scythians were for the King of Macedon and the other conquerors who tried to enslave their country.
The Mongol invasions can no more than Alexander's be regarded as a precedent for Russia. Inured to the fatigues of emigration, carrying all their ordinary habits into the camp, changing their country without changing their ways of life, unburdened by any materiel of war, and never retarded by the slow and painful march of a body of infantry, the hordes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane were singularly fitted for occupying and retaining possession of the immense plains of Turkistan, and realising the conquest of India.
Russia, on the contrary, is totally devoid of those grand means of sway which Alexander and the Mongols enjoyed. The Russians have nothing in common with the soldiers of antiquity and of the middle ages, and are placed in very different circumstances: they are natives of the coldest regions of the globe; they have no possible opportunity of previous acclimation, and they are separated from the frontiers of India by more than 500 leagues of almost desert country, in which the employment of infantry, wherein alone consists the real superiority of Europeans over Orientals, is impracticable.
And now, if we look to India, and to the people from whom the tzars propose to wrest its empire, we see Great Britain occupying all the towns on the coast and in the interior, mistress of the great rivers of the country, controlling millions of inhabitants by her irresistible political ascendency, having the richest and most productive countries of the world for the basis of her military operations, commanding acclimated European troops, and a powerful native army habituated to follow her banners; in a word, we see Great Britain placed in the most admirable position for defending her conquests, and repulsing any aggression of the northern nations, foreign to the soil of Hindustan and Central Asia. The fears of the English and the schemes of the Russians appear to us, therefore, alike chimerical. Undoubtedly, as we have already said, the intrigues of the government of St. Petersburg, may, like those of any other influential power, create difficulties and annoyances in Affghanistan and elsewhere; but the English rule will never be really in danger, until the time shall come when national ambition and a desire of resistance shall have been kindled in the Hindu populations themselves.
Let us turn back to the Caucasus, of which we have not spoken in this discussion, though the independence of its tribes is in our opinion one of the most important obstacles to the aggrandisement of Russia in Asia; and let us imagine what are the immediate palpable interests which are at stake in the Trans-Caucasian regions for certain powers of Europe. Every one knows that Persia is become of late years the point of contact between England and Russia, the scene of competition between the two nations for the disposal of their merchandise. Our readers are aware, that since the suppression of the transit trade and free commerce of the Caucasian provinces, the English have established a vast depot for their manufactures at Trebisond, whence they have not only acquired a monopoly in the supply of Armenia, Eastern Turkey, and the greater part of Persia, but also supply the Russian provinces themselves by contraband. Hence it may be conceived with what wakeful jealousy England must watch the proceedings of Russia beyond the Caucasus, and what an interest she has in impeding any conquest that would close against her the great commercial route she has pursued by way of Erzeroum and Tauris. She cannot, therefore, be indifferent to the independence of the Caucasus, which, while serving as a bulwark to the frontiers of Turkey and Persia, affords also a most effectual protection to her mercantile operations in Trebisond. It may perhaps be said that this is a merely English question, very interesting to the manufacturers of London and Manchester, but of little concern to France. But where our neighbours find means to dispose annually of more than 2,000,000_l._ sterling worth of manufactures, there also we think our own political and commercial interests are concerned. Have not we, too, an influence to keep up in Asia? Do not we, too, possess manufactories and a numerous working population, and is it not carrying indifference and apathy too far, to let other powers engross all those regions of Asia where we could find such ready and profitable markets? Whose fault is it if the French flag is so seldom seen on the Black Sea, if Trebisond is become an English town, and if the commerce of Asia is monopolised by our rivals? There is much to blame in the indifference of our country, and in the incapacity of some of our consular agents. But if our commercial policy is often vicious, if our trade is misdirected and mismanaged, and we are often outstripped by our neighbours across the channel, is that any reason why we should, in blind selfishness, express our approval of conquests which would only end in the destruction of all European commerce in the Black Sea? Certainly if Russia, modifying her prohibitive system, and frankly abandoning all further designs against Turkey and the coasts of the Black Sea, would seek to extend her dominions solely on the side of Persia, we think it would be good policy not to thwart such a movement; for in case of a struggle between that power and England, France would unquestionably be called on to act as a mediator, which would give her an admirable opportunity for dictating conditions favourable to her policy and her influence in the East.
The detailed considerations into which we have entered respecting the situation of the Russians, the war in the Caucasus, and the political importance of that region, clearly indicate the differences between the conflict in the Caucasus and that which we have been carrying on for fourteen years in Algeria. The aggressive policy of Russia once admitted, and her possessions north, south, and east of the Caucasus not allowing of contestation, the submission of the mountaineers becomes for her a vital question, with which is connected, not only the fate of her Asiatic provinces, but also that of all the governments that lie between the Danube and the Caspian. In Algeria, on the contrary, we are not urged by any imperious motive to extend our conquests. Our political influence in Europe, and our real strength could at present gain nothing thereby; and it is probably reserved to another generation to derive a grand and useful result from our African conquests.
Of late years some public writers, taking the defeats of Russia for their text, have founded on them an argument against the establishment of French supremacy in Algeria. This reasoning appears to us unsound, and it is even at variance with historical facts. In Asia, Russia has had to deal with two very distinct regions; the trans-Caucasian provinces, and the Caucasus proper. The former, easy of access, and comprising Georgia, Imeritia, Mingrelia, and the other provinces taken from Persia and Turkey, were occupied by disorganised nations, at variance within themselves, and differing from each other in race, manners, and religion; accordingly the Muscovite sway was established over them without difficulty, and without any conflict worth mentioning with the inhabitants. The case has not been the same in that immense mountain barrier erected between Europe and Asia, the inaccessible retreats of which extend from Anapa to the shores of the Caspian. The dwellers in those regions present no analogy with the inhabitants south of the chain. There has never been a moment's pause in the obstinate strife between them and Russia; and all the sacrifices, and all the efforts of the tzars against them, have for sixty years been wholly in vain.
Our situation in Algeria is evidently very different. We have there had for our portion neither the bootless strife of the Caucasus, though having most warlike tribes for adversaries, nor the easy conquests of the trans-Caucasian provinces. It is but fourteen years since our troops landed in Africa, and we possess, not only all the towns of the seaboard, but likewise all those of the interior; numerous bodies of natives share actively in our operations; we are masters of all the lines of communication; our forces command the country to a great distance from the coasts: and in the opinion of all well-informed officers the pacification of the regency of Algiers would, perhaps, have by this time been accomplished, if the government had set its face against the passion for bulletins, and the too martial humour of most of our generals, and tried to pacify the tribes, not by arms and violence, but numerously ramified commercial relations which should call into play the natural cupidity of the Arabs.
Nor can the topographical difficulties of Algeria be compared with those that defend the country of the Lesghis, the Tchetchenzes, and the Tcherkesses. Intersected by vast plateaux, numerous rich and fertile valleys, and parallel mountain ranges, almost everywhere passable and flanked by long lines of coast of which we possess the principal points, and which present at Algiers, Oran, Philippeville, and Bona, wide openings affording admission into the interior, our possessions afford free course to our armies, and nowhere exhibit that strange and singular conformation in which has consisted from time immemorial the safety of the Caucasian tribes.
There are other circumstances likewise that facilitate our progress in Africa, and enable us to exercise a direct influence over all the tribes south of the Tel of Algiers. As has been very ably demonstrated by M. Carrette, captain of engineers, it is enough to occupy the extreme limits of the cultivated lands, and the markets in which the inhabitants of the oases exchange their produce for the corn and other indispensable commodities of the north, to oblige all the populations of the Sahara, fixed or nomade, immediately to acknowledge the sovereignty of France.
It is only in case our government, impelled by ill-directed vanity, should decide on the absolute conquest of the mountains of the Kabyles, that we might encounter in the country, and in the political constitution of those mountaineers, some of the obstacles that characterise the Caucasian regions. And again, what comparison can there be between Kabylia, the two portions of which east and west of Algiers comprise but 1000 or 1200 square leagues of surface, and the great chain of the Caucasus which extends with a mean breadth of fifty or sixty leagues, over a length of more than 250 leagues?
We say nothing of the superiority of our armies and our military system. It is enough to recall what we have said as to the deplorable situation of the troops in the Caucasus, to be aware how much France has the advantage over Russia in this respect.
The diseases and the frightful mortality incident to our armies have been also dwelt on; but here again all the statistical returns are in favour of France. Out of a force of 75,000 men, our mean annual loss is 7000 or 8000. In 1840, indeed, the most fatal year, it appears to have risen to 12,000; but in that same year, and likewise in the following year, Russia lost more than 17,000 on the coasts of Circassia alone. Thus physically, as well as politically, there is a total difference between the war in the Caucasus and that in Algeria; and instead of suffering ourselves to be disheartened by fourteen years of unproductive occupation, and despairing before hand, because the actual results do not keep pace with our unreasonable impatience, we ought to take example by that indefatigable perseverance with which Russia, in spite of her disasters and the fruitlessness of her efforts, has gone on in the pursuit of her purpose for upwards of half a century.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] M. Hommaire says he has copied the bulletin exactly as it appeared in French in the Russian papers.
[62] "Unfortunately the author of this heroic act is unknown. It is believed from some hearsay accounts to have been performed by a private soldier of the Tenguinisky regiment of infantry. The results of the inquiry instituted on the subject will be published hereafter." (Note of the Russian journalist.)
[63] This was written in 1844.
[64] There is indeed a road by way of Daghestan along the Caspian; but it is still more impracticable than that by Mozdok, and besides it is too long to be of use to Russia in her dealings with the Asiatic governments. As for the maritime routes by the Caspian and the Black Sea, their utility is greatly limited by the intense frosts which block up the ports of Odessa, Kherson, Taganrok, Kertch, and Astrakhan during four months of the year.
[65] We do not mean these remarks to apply in any respect to the Mussulman tribes, of whom we will speak hereafter. The Christian and the Mahometan population balance each other in the trans-Caucasian provinces; they both number about 400,000 males.
[66] The mountains that divide Turkistan from Affghanistan are covered with perpetual snow; some of their peaks are 6000 yards high. Hadjigak, which was crossed by A. Burnes, is 4000 yards above the sea.
Chapter XXXII
A STORM IN THE CAUCASUS--NIGHT JOURNEY; DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES--STAVROPOL--HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CAUCASUS AND THE BLACK SEA COSSACKS.
At four o'clock on a dull morning we left Piatigorsk of charming memory, to strike once more into the mountains, where by the by, in less than an hour, we were met by one of the grandest and most violent storms I remember ever having witnessed. We had to endure its force for two long hours; and our situation was the more critical, since our yemshik (coachman), though quite familiar with the road, seemed almost at his wits' end. It was only by the gleam of the lightning he was able to make such brief observations of the ground as enabled him to guide his horses. This was certainly a very precarious resource, but there is a special providence for travellers. Lost in the midst of the mountains, and our sole hope of safety resting on the coolness and skill of a peasant, we escaped, we scarce knew how, from a seemingly inevitable catastrophe. A furious burst of rain, the last expiring effort of the storm, at last cleared the sky, which became coloured towards the west with purple bands, that contrasted gloriously with the darkness of the rest of the firmament. A magnificent rainbow, with one end springing from the highest peak of the Caucasus, whilst the other was lost in the mists of evening, gleamed before us for a few moments, and gradually dissolved away.
At half-past seven we reached the station, wet, weary, stupified, and very much surprised to find ourselves safe and sound after having passed through so many dangers. Nevertheless, this recent alert by no means made us forego our original plan of travelling all night in order to reach Stavropol the next day. Nothing is so soon forgotten in travelling as danger. One is no sooner out of one scrape than he is ready to get into another, and a worse one, without giving a thought to his past alarms. You must get over the ground: that is your ruling thought. As for taking precautions, calculating the good or the bad chances of the journey, or troubling oneself about dangers to come, by reason of those already incurred, all this is quite out of the question. We were quite bent on travelling all night, but the idea was totally discountenanced by the postmaster and the Cossacks whom we fell in with at the station. They told us there was a fair at Stavropol, and that the road was always somewhat dangerous on such occasions, particularly after sunset. A night or two before, several persons returning from the fair had been surprised and plundered by the Circassians, in spite of the many military posts along the road. Several other ugly stories were told us, in a tone that at last shook our resolution, and we were beginning very reluctantly to give up our project, when an unexpected incident made us recur to it again.
A Polish officer, who until then had kept aloof in a dark corner, seeing the annoyance we felt at this unforeseen delay, joined in the conversation, and offered to set out at once with us, if his company would be sufficient to restore our confidence. He, too, was going to Stavropol, and it was all the same to him whether he travelled that night or next day. The proposal, which was made with the most obliging frankness, agreed too well with our wishes to allow of any further hesitation, and we at once accepted it. The Pole had with him a servant very well armed, and the two together were such a reinforcement to our little troop as almost insured our safety. With great exultation we set about our preparations for departure, but the more experienced postmaster gave with reluctance the order to put the horses to, and could not help crossing himself repeatedly when he saw us get into the britchka, whilst the two yemshiks failed not to imitate his example, and to lift their fur caps several times in token of devotion. The Russians always find means to mingle crossings with all the other acts of their hands, by which process they set their consciences entirely at rest. I am satisfied they cross themselves even when thieving, partly from habit, and partly in the hope of escaping without detection.
Once out of the yard, the pleasure of travelling on a mild and dim night through an unknown country, that presented itself to our eyes under vague and mysterious forms, so engrossed our minds that we thought no more of Circassians, or broken ground, or danger of any kind. The Pole's carriage preceded ours, and his Cossack began to sing in a low tone one of those sweet melancholy airs which are peculiar to the Malorussians. The plaintive melody, mingled with the tinkling of the horses' bells, and the motion of the carriage lulled me into a dreamy repose, half way between sleeping and waking. I know not how long this state of hallucination lasted; but I was startled out of it by a pistol-shot fired close to me, and before I could collect my senses a second was fired, but at some distance. The carriage had stopped, the night was very dark, and my companions were quite silent. I was a good deal frightened, until my husband explained to me that the Polish officer had lost his way, and that our dragoman had fired his pistol as a signal to him, and that the second shot was an answer to the first. Being now satisfied that we had not half a dozen Circassians about us, I recovered courage enough to laugh at my first dismay. Anthony left us to look for our travelling companion, after arranging with us that a third shot should be the token of his having found him. We passed half an hour in a state of painful anxiety, teasing ourselves with a thousand alarming conjectures, and dreading lest the report of fire-arms should bring down on us some of the Circassians who might be prowling in the neighbourhood. What would I not have then given to be far away from that road which we had been told was so terrible, and of which my imagination still more magnified the dangers!
At last the preconcerted signal was heard, and Anthony soon afterwards returned, but alone, and told us that we must go on without the Pole, whose pereclatnoi had stuck fast in a bad spot, and could not be extricated until daylight. The night was so dark, and the ground so dangerous, that notwithstanding his wish to ease our minds, the officer could not venture to come to us. This news was not calculated to abate our anxiety; we might in a moment be in the same predicament as the officer, supposing nothing worse should happen. The road, as the yemshik told us, wound round a rock, and what proved that it was dangerous was that it was flanked in places with slight posts and rails. Such a precaution is so rare in Russia, that it may be taken as a certain indication of no common danger. We debated awhile whether it would not be more prudent to remain where we were until daybreak; but the coachman was so terrified at the thought of passing a night in the mountains, that he gave us no peace till we moved forward. The prospect of tumbling down a precipice was decidedly less terrible to him than the thought of having to do with the Circassians. Alighting and leading his horses, he followed Anthony, who carefully sounded one side of the road. As we advanced on our perilous descent, the sound of a torrent roaring at the bottom smote our ears, as if to increase our perplexity; but in an hour's time we found ourselves safe and sound on the plain, and soon afterwards we reached the station, where our arrival excited great astonishment. The postmaster was enraged against his colleague, and could not conceive how he had come to give us horses at night, in defiance of the strict rules of the police. For his part he assured us that his duty forbade him to do any such thing, and that it was useless to ask him. I need not say, however, that this declaration itself was useless, for we had had quite enough of the road for that night. I never enjoyed the most comfortable chamber in a French or German hotel so much as I did the miserable lodging in which I then lay down on a bench covered only with a carpet.
We did not quit the station next day until the arrival of our travelling companion, whom we had reluctantly left in so unpleasant a predicament. He was severely bruised by his fall, but laughed heartily at his mishap. We set out together, very glad to get away from those fine mountains that were then gleaming in the rays of the morning. The events of the preceding night, though after all not very dramatic, had left so painful an impression on our mind, that the very sight of the mountains still caused us a secret dread. Instead, therefore, of quitting with regret so picturesque a region, the more homely and commonplace the country became, the more we admired it. We were just in the humour to be delighted with the steppes of the Black Sea; so much does the appreciation of scenery depend on the state of the mind.
During all this day's journey the road was covered with carriages, horsemen, and pedestrians, repairing to the fair of Stavropol, and affording samples of all the motley population of the vicinity, Circassians, Cossacks, Turcomans, Georgians, and Tatars; some in brilliant costume, caracoling on their high-bred Kalmuck or Persian horses, others stowed away with their families in carts covered with hides; others driving before them immense flocks of sheep or swine, that encompassed the carriages and horsemen, and occasioned some very comical incidents. Among all those whom business or pleasure was calling to the fair, we particularly noticed a very handsome young Circassian mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, and riding constantly beside a pavosk of more elegance than the rest, and the curtains of which were let down. This was enough to stimulate our curiosity, for in these romantic regions the slightest incident affords matter for endless conjectures. I would have given something to be allowed to lift one of the curtains of the mysterious pavosk, or at the least to keep it in view until our arrival in Stavropol, but our postilion did not partake in our curiosity, and putting his horses to a gallop, he soon made us lose sight of the group. The last low range of the Caucasus, which gradually diminishes in height to Stavropol, formed an irregular line on our left, in which we caught many hasty glimpses of charming scenery. The vegetation still retained a great degree of freshness, in consequence of the mildness of the temperature, which at this season would have appeared to us extraordinary even in more southern countries.
It was late in the evening when we reached Stavropol, so that we could not avail ourselves of our letters of introduction, and were obliged to hunt for a lodging in the hotels of the principal street. But they were all full, and with great difficulty we succeeded, with the help of our Polish friend, in getting admission to the Great Saint Nicholas, a shabby inn, the common room of which was already tenanted by a dozen travellers. Nevertheless, we secured a little corner, and there we contrived to form a tolerable sort of divan with our cushions and pelisses. I had now an opportunity of remarking how little notice travellers take of each other in this country. In this room, filled with people whose habits were so different from ours, we were as much at our ease as if the apartment belonged to us alone; and neither our language, behaviour, nor dress, appeared to attract any undue attention.
Stavropol, the capital of the whole Caucasus, is a very agreeable town, and appeared to us so much the more so from the animation lent it by the fair. But I perceive that in the course of these travels I have not named one town without immediately joining the word fair to it. It must be owned that chance was most bountiful to us in throwing in our way so many occasions for conceiving a high idea of the commerce of Russia. At Stavropol, however, the fair occupied our attention much less than General Grabe, who was just a week returned from an expedition against the Circassians. His staff filled the whole town with the noise of their martial deeds. Every officer had his story of some glorious exploit, whereof of course he was himself the hero. Though so recently returned, General Grabe was already in busy preparation for another campaign, on which he built the greatest hopes. The good gentleman even pressed my husband very strongly to accompany him, as if it were a mere party of pleasure. He offered him his tent, instruments, and every thing necessary to render the excursion beneficial to science. Under any other circumstances my husband would no doubt have yielded to the temptation of visiting the tribes of the Caucasus in the very heart of their mountains, under the protection of a whole army, but it would have been madness to undertake such a journey after those we had but just completed.
* * * * *
Before we finally take leave of the Caucasian regions, it will not be amiss to give some historical account of that part of the empire, and of the Cossacks of the Black Sea, to whom is committed the perilous task of protecting the frontiers against the incessant attacks of the formidable mountain tribes.
It was by virtue of an ukase promulgated by Catherine II. in 1783, that Russia took full and entire possession of all the countries north of the Kouban and the Terek, which of yore formed the almost exclusive dominions of numerous hordes of black Nogais, some of them independent, others acknowledging the authority of the Tatar khans of the Crimea. But previously to this period the tzars were already in military occupation of the country, for it was in 1771 that they completed the armed line of the Caucasus, begun by Peter the Great, at the mouth of the Terek.
At first the new conquest was put under the direction of the military governor of Astrakhan; but the state of the southern frontiers soon became so serious in consequence of the war with the mountaineers, that it was found advisable to form all the provinces conquered by Catherine II. north of the Caucasus, into a distinct province. The government of the Caucasus thus constituted, is bounded on the north by the Kouma and the Manitch, which divide it from the territory of Astrakhan and from that of the Don Cossacks; on the west by the country of the Black Sea Cossacks; on the east by the Caspian, and on the south by the armed line of the Kouban and the Terek.
At the foot of the Caucasus, as everywhere else, the Russian occupation occasioned great migrations. All the black Nogais of the right bank of the Kouban, who had fought against Russia, withdrew beyond the river among the tribes of the mountain. The Kabardians forsook the environs of Georgief, and sought refuge deeper in the Caucasian chain, and it was only the black Nogais of the barren plains between the Terek and the Kouma that remained in their old abodes. Cut off from the independent tribes since the erection of the fortresses of Kisliar and Mosdok, they took no part in the events of the war, and so they remained in peaceable possession of their territory. As for the Kalmucks, who had been very bold and active auxiliaries of Russia, they preserved intact all the pasturages they now possess in the government of the Caucasus.
The Muscovite sway once established, and the frontiers put in a state of defence, the next step was to occupy the country along the northern verge of the Caucasus in some other way than by light troops. It was therefore determined to form numerous colonies of Muscovites and Cossacks, a project which the absolute power of the tzars enabled them quickly to fulfil. The present villages in the centre of the province along the banks of the Kouban, the Terek, the Kouma, the Egorlik and the Kalaous, were erected, and the military colonies of the Black Sea Cossacks were founded; several large proprietors seconded the efforts of the government, and prompted either by the spirit of speculation, or by the superabundance of their slaves, formed large establishments on the lands that had been gratuitously conferred upon them. Attempts, too, were made to settle some of the German families of Saratof on the Kouma.
But the results were far from realising the hopes of the government. Compressed between the narrow limits in the districts of Stavropol and Georgief, bounded on the north and east by the uncultivated lands of the Turcomans and Kalmucks, on the south by the armed lines, continually attacked and overrun by the mountaineers, the colonies soon ceased to wear a thriving appearance; many sacked and burnt villages never rose again from their ashes, the German colony on the Kouma was destroyed, and now there remains no hope that the number of agricultural inhabitants will ever become sufficient to lend any real aid to the projects of the tzars. We have been in a great many villages on the Kouma, and the confluents of the Manitch, and found them scarcely able to supply their own wants. Their contributions to the commissariat are almost nothing, and the armies are always obliged to procure their stores from the central provinces of Russia.
Some settlements, indeed, such as Vladimirofka and Bourgon Madjar on the Kouma, directed by able men, have attained a high degree of prosperity; but these are exceptions, and they owe their wealth to the cultivation of the mulberry and the pine, and their numerous corn-mills, which constitute for them a virtual monopoly. The cultivation of corn has had no share in the welfare of these colonies, the nature of the climate having always been unfavourable to it: the people of Vladimirofka and the neighbouring villages think themselves fortunate if they can raise corn enough for their own consumption.
Thus, while we cordially approve of the principle that suggested the foundation of these advanced posts of the Slavic population, and that strives to enlarge their growth, we are nevertheless convinced that in the present state of things, with the war in the Caucasus becoming every day more formidable, these colonies can never be conducive to the progress of Russia; unless, indeed, that should happen, which we think most unlikely, namely, that the government should so extend its conquests as to become undisputed possessor of the fertile regions beyond the Kouban, where the colonist could command sufficient natural resources.
The Cossacks better fulfilled the purpose for which they were settled on the frontier. Active, enterprising, and accustomed to partisan warfare, they were admirably adapted for resisting the incursions of the mountaineers. If they have been less efficient of late years, the blame must be laid on the inordinate demands of the government, the extreme contempt with which they are treated by the Russian generals, and, above all, the extinction of the privileges which had been wisely conferred on them in the beginning, and which alone could guarantee to the empire the maintenance of their vigorous military organisation.
The Black Sea Cossacks, as every one is aware, are descended from the Zaporogues of the Dniepr, whose famous military corporation appears to have been established towards the end of the fifteenth century. Continually engaged against the Tatars of the Crimea, the Ukraine Cossacks founded at this period a sort of colony near the mouths of the Dniepr, consisting exclusively of unmarried men, whose special avocation it was to guard the frontiers. Their numbers rapidly increased, deserters from all nations being attracted to them by the hope of booty, and their setcha, or head-quarters, on an island of the Dniepr, became famous throughout the land for the military services and the valour of its inhabitants. In 1540, such was the importance of these colonies to Poland, that King Sigismund granted a large tract of land above the cataracts to the Zaporogues, in order to strengthen the barrier erected by them between his dominions and the Tatars.
The new settlements on the Dniepr for a long time followed the fortune of the Cossacks of Little Russia. But as their strength augmented continually, they at last detached themselves from the mother country, and became an independent military state. The supremacy of the tzars was imposed on Little Russia in 1664, and from that time the Zaporogues, deprived of their allies, and left entirely to their own resources, owned allegiance, according to circumstances, to the Turks or the Tatars, to Poland or Russia, until the rebellion of Mazeppa, in which they took part, led to the total destruction of their power. Some years afterwards we find them again rallied under the protection of the khans of the Crimea; but Russia soon assumed so formidable an attitude in those parts, that they were at last constrained, in 1737, to acknowledge themselves vassals of the empire.
But the political decline of the unfortunate Zaporogues did not stop there. During the war that preceded the treaty of Koutchouk Kainardji, a strong desire for independence was excited among them by the arbitrary acts of Russia. Many of their detachments fought even in the ranks of the Turks. Then it was that Catherine determined on completely rooting out the military colony of the Dniepr. The Zaporogues were expelled by force from their territory, which was given to other cultivators; and some of them emigrated beyond the Danube, while others were transported to the neighbourhood of Bielgorod. Ten years afterwards, when war broke out again with Turkey, a great number of the latter volunteered into the Russian armies. After the peace of Jassy, Prince Potemkin, who had formed them into regiments, was so pleased with their valour and fidelity, that he induced Catherine to settle them beyond the strait of the Kertch, and intrust them with the defence of the Circassian border. They were also granted, along with the peninsula of Taman, the whole territory comprised between the Kouban and the Sea of Azof, and extending eastward to the confluent of the Laba, and northward to the river Eia. The Zaporogues then took the appellation of Cossacks of the Black Sea, and their organisation was assimilated to that of their brethren of the Don. They had an attaman, nominated for life by the emperor, out of a list of candidates chosen by themselves; and the civil and military affairs of the community were directed, under this supreme chief, by two permanent functionaries, and four assessors changed every three years. Other privileges were likewise accorded to them, consisting chiefly in exemption from all taxes, the free use of the salt-pools, the right of terminating all litigations without having recourse to the St. Petersburg courts of appeal, and in the pledge given to them by the government, that their regiments should never be required to serve beyond their own territory.
Under the influence of Catherine's liberal institutions, the military colony completely fulfilled the hopes of the government, and made rapid progress. The rich pastures of the Kouban were covered with immense multitudes of cattle, and agriculture, too, attained some degree of importance. The population also augmented considerably. The lands of the Kouban, as formerly those of the Don, became an asylum for a great number of fugitives, and the neighbouring provinces had often to complain of the escape of their slaves. But for the last twenty years the Black Sea Cossacks have been suffering from the effects of the new measures for equalisation and uniformity, and, like the Cossacks of the Don, they are now on the eve of being subjected to the ordinary laws and institutions of the provinces of the empire. The first encroachment on their privileges, was their employment on active service during the late wars with Turkey and Persia. They were obliged to furnish four regiments, which lost an enormous number of men, and nearly all their horses. This first step taken, the government advanced rapidly in its course of reform, and in a few years the Cossacks were deprived of their right of electing their own functionaries, who were thenceforth nominated by the emperor alone. These administrative changes, conjoined with the military duties, which have increased to a most onerous extent in the course of the war against the mountaineers, have had a very depressing effect on the spirits of the population; and at this day the Cossacks of the Kouban are far different men from those fiery Zaporogues, whose vigorous aid was so eagerly sought by Russia, Poland, and Turkey. The military life is become a loathsome burden to them, and they now only fight by constraint or in self-defence. The Russians, accordingly, accuse them of cowardice; but the government, by destroying their privileges, and the commanders-in-chief by the scorn with which they treat them and the continual activity they impose on them, do all that in them lies to dishearten and debase them. It is they who are always put foremost in every expedition; every commanding officer sacrifices them without scruple, and makes targets of them for the balls of the mountaineers. Is it reasonable, then, to expect alacrity and high courage on the part of men for whom military service is the breaking of every family tie, the destruction of all domestic prosperity, and who have not been left, in exchange for so many sacrifices, even the shadow of national independence?
At the time of my last journey to the Caucasus in 1840, the Cossacks of the Black Sea numbered about 112,000 souls, of whom 68,000 were males, residing in sixty-four villages, and on 36,000,000 hectares of land held in common property, like the country of the Don in former times. The colonial army counted at that period according to the registers, eleven regiments of cavalry, ten of infantry, of 800 men each, and two batteries of artillery, one of them mounted, making altogether a total of 20,000 men, nearly the third of the male population. No doubt, the army can never in any case reach the official amount of force, its ranks being continually thinned by disease and war; and although young men are forced to enter the service at the age of seventeen, and are often kept in it thirty or forty years, still it would be quite impossible to bring more than 12,000 or 14,000 into the field at once, without endangering the total destruction of the population. In a pecuniary point of view, no men could well be more unfortunate than the Cossacks of the Kouban, whether in campaign against the mountaineers, or merely cantoned as reserves in their villages, they receive absolutely nothing for their services. The regulations, indeed, declare that the regiments actually called out shall receive pay at the rate of six rubles annually for each private, thirty-five rubles for every non-commissioned officer, and 250 for every subaltern officer; but infallible means have been found for preventing these moderate allowances from ever reaching those to whom they are promised. The posting establishment throughout the Cossack country costs the government just as little as the maintenance of the troops, since horses, harness, hay, and corn are all furnished gratis by the colony. The postilions even receive no pay whatever; they are only allowed a little flour and groats, and for every thing else they and their families must shift for themselves during their whole term of service. As for the progon (the posting-money paid by travellers), it belongs to the Cossack exchequer, and composes, with the proceeds of the farm of brandy, salt, and the fisheries, the sole revenues of the country.
When I was at Ekaterinodar, the capital of the country, during the season of field-work, and in a time of quiet, they reckoned fourteen regiments on active service. Accordingly, as might have been expected, agriculture had been long neglected, and the country was in a miserable state. Nothing was to be seen in the villages but infirm old men, invalids, widows, and orphans; and the existence of the colony depended on the toil of the women alone. The distress then became so great as to excite the uneasiness of the government, and commissioners were sent to examine into the state of things; but unfortunately the mission, like every thing of the kind, did no good. The truth remained completely concealed from the emperor. The blame was cast entirely on the Cossacks themselves, and nothing was done to remedy the sufferings of the population.
We do not know what measures have been adopted since our departure by the imperial government with respect to the present and future situation of the military colony of the Kouban. For our own parts, having had opportunities of appreciating the good qualities of the Tchornomorskie Cossacks, and all the capabilities which a wise administration would find in them, we cannot but heartily wish that the government may, with a better understanding of its own true interests, at least adopt towards them a line of conduct more in accordance with their wants and their laborious services.
Chapter XXXIII
RAPID JOURNEY FROM STAVROPOL--RUSSIAN WEDDING--PERILOUS PASSAGE OF THE DON; ALL SORTS OF DISASTERS BY NIGHT-- TAGANROK; COMMENCEMENT OF THE COLD SEASON--THE GERMAN COLONIES REVISITED.
It would have been impossible to travel more rapidly than we did from Stavropol to the Don. The steppe is as smooth as a mirror, and the posting better conducted than in any other part. We no sooner reached a station, than horses, which had been brought out the moment we were descried, were put to, and galloped away with us without a moment's check to the next station. A temperature of at least 20 deg. Reaumer, the beauty of the sky, and something light and joyous in the atmosphere, kept us in the highest spirits. In no country have I ever seen such multitudes of gossamer threads. The carriage, the horses, and our clothes were covered with those glistening prognostics of fair weather.
As we advanced towards the abodes of civilisation, our thoughts were all about the pleasure of arriving at Taganrok, to find our letters, our friends, our European habits again, and the comforts of which for many months we had enjoyed but casual snatches. We rejoiced, therefore, in the speed with which we got over the ground, and scarcely cared to bestow a glance on the stanitzas that fled away behind us. In passing through a Russian village, however, we were constrained to bestow some attention on outward objects, our carriage being stopped by a wedding party that filled the whole street. We counted a dozen pavosks filled with young people of both sexes. The girls, with their heads bedizened with ribbons, screamed almost like savages, and rivalled the young men in impudence and coarseness. It was a disgusting spectacle. The bride differed from the rest only by the greater profusion of ribbons and flowers that formed her head-gear; her face was as red, her gestures as indelicate, and her voice as loud and shrill as those of her companions.
It may seem scarcely credible, but we were but two-and-twenty hours travelling 316 versts, between Stavropol and the Don. We ate and slept in the carriage, and only alighted at the river side, where all sorts of tribulations awaited us. I cannot at this moment think of that memorable night without wondering at the pertinacity with which ill-luck clings to us when once it has fastened upon us. At ten at night, when we were some little way from the Don, we were told that the bridge was in a very bad state, and that we should probably be obliged to wait till the next day, before we could cross it. Such a delay was not what we had bargained for, especially as we had reckoned on enjoying that very night a good supper and a good bed under a friendly roof in Rostof. Then the weather, which had been so mild, had suddenly turned chill, and this was another motive to haste; so we went on without heeding what was told us; but when we came to the river, the tokens that the bridge was out of order, were but too manifest. Several carts stood there unyoked, and peasants lay beside them, patiently waiting the daylight. These men reiterated the bad news we had already heard; but then it was only eleven o'clock; if we waited we should have to pass nearly seven hours in the britchka, exposed to the cold night air, whereas once on the other side, we should reach Rostof in two hours. This consideration was too potent to allow of our receding from our purpose. At the same time we neglected no precaution that prudence required. The coachman and the Cossack were sent forward with a lantern to make a reconnaissance, and returning in half an hour, they reported that the passage was not quite impracticable, only it would be necessary to be very cautious, for some parts of the bridge were so weak, that any imprudence might be fatal to us.
Without calculating the risks we were about to run, we at once alighted, and followed the carriage, which the coachman drove slowly, whilst the Cossack went ahead with the lantern, pointing out the places he ought to avoid. I do not think that in the whole course of my travels we were ever in so alarming a situation. The danger was imminent and indubitable. The cracking of the woodwork, the darkness, the noise of the water dashing through the decayed floor, that bent under our feet, and the cries of alarm uttered every moment by the coachman and the Cossack, were enough to fill us with dismay: yet the thought of death did not occur to me, or rather my mind was too confused to have any distinct thought at all. Frequently the wheels sank between the broken planks, and those were moments of racking anxiety; but at last by dint of perseverance we reached the opposite bank in safety. The passage had lasted more than an hour; it was time for it to end, for I could hold out no longer; the water on the bridge was over our ancles. It may be imagined with what satisfaction we took our places again in the carriage. The dangers we had just incurred, and which we were then better able fully to understand, almost made us doubt our actual safety. For a long while we seemed to hear the noise of the waves breaking against the bridge; but this feeling was soon dispelled by others; for our nocturnal adventures were by no means at an end.
At some versts from the Don our unlucky star put us into the hands of a drunken coachman, who after losing his way, I know not how often, and bumping us over ditches and ploughed fields, actually brought us back in sight of the dreadful bridge which we still could not think of without shuddering. We tried in our distress to persuade ourselves we were mistaken, but the case was too plain; there was the Don in front of us, and there stood Axai, the village we had passed through after getting into the britchka. Fancy our rage after floundering about for two hours to find ourselves just at the point from which we started. The only thing we could think of was to pass the night in a peasant's cabin; but our abominable coachman, whom the sight of the river had suddenly sobered, and who had reason to expect a sound drubbing, threw himself on his knees and so earnestly implored us to try the road to Rostof again, that we yielded to his entreaties. The difficulty was how to get back into the road, and we had many a start before we found it. The carriage was so violently shaken in crossing a ditch, that the coachman and Anthony were pitched from their seats, and the latter fell upon the pole, and became entangled in such a way that he was not easily extricated. His shouts for help, and his grimaces when my husband and the Cossack had set him on his legs were so desperate, that one would have thought half his bones were broken, though he had only a few trifling bruises. As for the yemshik, he picked himself up very coolly, and climbed into his seat again as if nothing extraordinary had happened. To see the quiet way in which he resumed the reins, one would have supposed he had just risen from a bed of roses; such is the usual apathy of the Russian peasants.
It was four in the morning when we came in sight of Rostof, which is but twelve versts distant from the Don. Thus we spent a great part of the night in wandering about that town, like condemned ghosts, without deriving much advantage from our rash passage of the river. It was well worth while to run the risk of drowning, when our calculations and efforts could be baffled by so vulgar a cause as the drunkenness of a coachman! But the sight of Rostof, where good cheer and hospitality awaited us, consoled us for all our mishaps. Yet even here, when we almost touched the goal, our patience was put to further trial; for alighting at the post station two versts from the town, our rascally coachman positively refused to drive us a foot beyond it. This was too much for the Cossack's endurance, so drawing out a long knout from his belt, he paid the fellow on the spot the whole reckoning he had intended to settle with him at the journey's end. The yemshik's shouts brought all the people of the station about us, and the wife of the postmaster came and scolded him at such a rate, that at last he was forced to drive us to the town; but it was more than an hour before he set us down at Mr. Yeams's house. His drunkenness had now passed into the sleepy stage, and he could only be kept to his work by constant thumping.
The house where we intended to lodge contained a corn store belonging to Mr. Yeams, English consul at Taganrok, who had obligingly invited us to use it when we quitted that town, and had sent orders to that effect to his clerk, M. Grenier: and so pleased were we with our quarters on our first visit to Rostof, that now the thought of going anywhere else never entered our heads. To have done so would have seemed an affront to Mr. Yeams's cordial hospitality. While we were unpacking the carriage, Anthony went and knocked at the door, and the coachman, unyoking his horses, in a trice went off as fast as he could, without even waiting to ask for drink money. Some minutes elapsed; Hommaire, losing patience, knocks again, when at last out comes Anthony with a very long face, and tells us that M. Grenier, clerk and Provencal into the bargain, refused of his own authority to receive us, pretending that he had not a room for us. Unable to comprehend such conduct, and believing that there was some mistake in the case, my husband went himself to the man, who putting his nose out from under the blankets, told him impudently, we must go and look for a lodging elsewhere.
All comment on such behaviour would be superfluous. To shut the door at night against one's own country people, and one of them a woman, rather than incur a little personal trouble, was a proceeding that could enter the head of none but a Provencal. The Kalmucks might have given a lesson in politeness to this boor, who rolled himself up snugly to sleep, whilst we spent the night, benumbed and shivering, under his windows in his court-yard. It may be conceived in what a state I passed the night; drenched with wet, worn down with mental and bodily fatigue, hungry, sleepy, and chilled by the sharp cold that at that season precedes sunrise, I was really unconscious of what was passing around me. As soon as it was light the Cossack procured horses, and took us to the best hotel in Rostof, where a warm room, an excellent bowl of soup, and a large divan, soon set us to rights again. On our arrival at Taganrok all the Yeams family were indignant at the behaviour of our Provencal, and, had we been disposed to pay him in his own coin we might have done so. They would have sent him his discharge forthwith, had we not interceded for him; the French consul wrote him a threatening letter, and with this our vengeance remained satisfied.
We learned at Taganrok that the strangest rumours had gone abroad respecting us. Some said that the Circassians had made us prisoners, others that we had perished of hunger and thirst in the Caspian steppes. In short, every one had had his own melodramatic version of our supposed fate. I cannot describe all the kind interest that was shown on our safe return from so hazardous a journey. In spite of our wish to arrive as soon as possible in Odessa, we could not refrain from bestowing a week on friends who received us with such warm sympathy.
The winds from the Ural swept away in one night all that October had spared. The weather was still sunny when we arrived on the shores of the Sea of Azof; but on the next day the sky assumed that sombre chilly hue that always precedes the metels or snow-storms. The whole face of nature seemed prepared for the reception of winter, that eternal sovereign of northern lands. The sea-beach covered with a thin coating of ice, the harsh winds, the ground hardened by the frost, and the increasing lividness of the atmosphere, all betokened its coming, and made us keenly apprehensive of what we should have to suffer on our way to Odessa, where we were to take up our winter quarters, and from whence we were still 900 versts distant. With the rapidity of the Russian post the journey might be accomplished in ten days, if the weather were not unfavourable; but after the threatening symptoms I have mentioned, we might expect soon to have a fall of snow, and perhaps to be kept prisoners by it in some village.
Unfortunately for us it was the most dangerous season for travelling in Russia. The first snows, which are not firm enough to bear a sledge, are much feared by travellers, and almost every year cause many accidents. At this period, too, the winds are very violent, and produce those frightful snow-storms which we have already described. It was a very cheerless prospect for persons so way-worn and weary as we were, to have incessantly to fight against the elements and other obstacles. I remember that in this last journey our need of rest was so urgent, that the poorest peasant seated by his stove was an object of envy to us.
We once more passed through all the German colonies I had so much admired a few months before. But the pleasing verdure of May had disappeared beneath the icy winds of the north, and all was dreary and dull of hue. Even the houses, no longer glistening in the sunshine, had a sombre appearance in harmony with the withered leaves of the orchards. A metel that broke out one night forced us to pass two days in a German village, in the house of a worthy old Prussian couple. The wife had lost the use of one side, and could not leave her chair, but her husband supplied her place in all the domestic concerns with a skill that surprised us. As in all the German houses, the principal room was adorned with a handsome porcelain stove, and a large tester bed which our hosts insisted on giving up to us. From morning till night the husband, aided by a stout servant girl, exerted all his culinary powers for our benefit. The table was laid out all day until dinner hour with coffee, pastry, bottles of wine, ham, and other appetising commodities.
There is nothing I think more delightful in travelling than to watch the proceedings of a somewhat rustic cuisine. In such cases all the marvels of Careme's art fade before two or three simple dishes prepared under your own eyes. The ear is pleasingly titillated by the tune of the frying-pan, the smell of good things stimulates desire and quickens the imagination, and the very preliminaries are so agreeable, that the traveller would not exchange them for the most magnificent banquet in the world.
The quantity of snow that had fallen during those two days retarded our speed. A man rode on before the carriage and carefully sounded the ground, for the metel had filled up the holes and ditches, and obliterated all landmarks. Nothing can be more frightful than those snowy wastes recently swept and tossed by furious winds. All trace of man's existence and his works, have disappeared beneath those white billows heaped upon each other like those of the ocean in a storm. How well we could appreciate, in those long days we spent in plodding through the snow, the horrible sufferings of our poor soldiers, perishing by thousands in the fatal retreat of 1812! The thought of their misery smote upon our hearts, and forbade us to complain, warmly clad as we were, drawn by stout horses, and having all we required done for us by others.
As we approached Kherson post-sledges began to show themselves; several of them shot by us with travellers wrapped up to the eyes in their fur cloaks. These sledges are very low, and hold at most two persons. It very often happens that the body part upsets without the driver's perceiving it; the accident is not at all dangerous; but it must be exceedingly annoying to the traveller, as he rolls in the snow, to see his sledge borne away from him at full speed, leaving him no help for it but to follow on foot. If the driver does not take the precaution to look back from time to time, the traveller may chance to run all the way to the next station, and it may be imagined in what a plight he arrives there. When the accident happens by night the case is still more serious. Many Russians have told us that they had thus lost their way, and only after a day or two's search had found the station where their sledge had arrived empty. Nothing, indeed, is more common than to lose one's way in the steppes, nor is it at all necessary to that end that one should fall out of his sledge. We ourselves were once in danger of roaming about all night in the neighbourhood of Kherson in search of our road, which we could not find. A very dense fog surprised us at sunset, scarcely five versts from the town. For a long time we went on at random, not knowing whether we were going north or south, and Heaven knows where we should have found ourselves at last, if we had not caught the sound of horses' bells. The travellers put us on the right way, and told us it was ten o'clock, and we had twelve versts between us and Kherson.
Chapter XXXIV
DEPARTURE FOR THE CRIMEA--BALACLAVA--VISIT TO THE MONASTERY OF ST. GEORGE--SEVASTOPOL--THE IMPERIAL FLEET.
After a winter spent in the pleasures of repose, we left Odessa at the end of April to visit the Crimea, on board the Julia, a handsome brig, owned and commanded by M. Taitbout de Marigny. Our departure was extremely brilliant. The two cannons of the Julia, and those of the Little Mary, that was to sail in company with us, announced to the whole town that we were about to weigh anchor. Our passage could not fail to be agreeable under such a captain as ours. M. Taitbout de Marigny, consul of the Netherlands, joins to the varied acquirements of the man of science all the accomplishments of the artist and man of the world.
The voyage was very short, but full of chances and incidents; we had sea-sickness, squalls, clear moonlight nights, and a little of all the pains and pleasures of the sea. On the second morning, the sun shining brightly, we began to discern the coast of that land, surnamed inhospitable by the ancients, by reason of the horrible custom of its inhabitants to massacre every stranger whom chance or foul weather led thither. The woes of Orestes alone would suffice to render the Tauris celebrated. Who is there that has not been moved by that terrible and pathetic drama, of which the brother and sister were the hero and heroine on this desert shore! As soon as I could distinguish the line of rocks that vaguely marked the horizon, I began to look for Cape Parthenike, on which tradition places the temple of the goddess of whom Iphigenia was the priestess, and where she was near immolating her brother. With the captain's aid I at last descried on a point of rock at a great distance from us a solitary chapel, which I was informed was dedicated to the Virgin. What a contrast between the gentle worship of Mary and that of the sanguinary Taura, who exacted for offerings not the simple prayers and ex voto of the mariner, but human victims! All this part of the coast is sterile and desert: a wall of rock extended before us, and seemed to shut us out from the peninsula so often conquered and ravaged by warlike and commercial nations. Richly endowed by nature, the Tauris, Chersonese, or Crimea, has always been coveted by the people of Europe and Asia. Pastoral nations have contended for possession of its mountains; commercial nations for its ports and its renowned Bosphorus; warlike peoples have pitched their tents amid its magnificent valleys; all have coveted a footing on that soil, to which Greek civilisation has attached such brilliant memories.
During a part of the day the wind was contrary, and obliged us to make short tacks in view of the rocky wall; but at four o'clock a change of wind allowed the brig to approach the coast. The sea was like a magnificent basin reflecting in its transparent waters the great calcareous masses that overhung it. It was a fine spectacle; but our captain's serious expression of countenance, and the intentness with which he watched the sails, and directed the manoeuvres, plainly showed that our situation was one of difficulty, if not of danger. A boat was manned and sent off to explore the coast, and as its white sail gleamed at a distance in the sun, it looked like a seabird in search of its nest in the hollow of some rock. The Little Mary imitated all our evolutions, skimming over the waves like a sea swallow. She shortened her trip at every tack, and kept closer and closer to us; and our captain's face grew more and more grave, until all at once to our great surprise the rock opened before us like a scene in a theatre, and afforded us a passage which two vessels could not have entered abreast. Having got fairly through the channel, M. Taitbout was himself again. This entrance he told us is very dangerous in stormy weather, and often impracticable even when the wind is but moderately fresh. The scene, however, on which it opens is extremely beautiful. The port is surrounded with mountains, the highest of which still bear traces of the old Genoese dominion, and in front of the entrance is the pretty Greek town of Balaclava, with its balconied houses and trees rising in terraces one above the other. A ruined fortress overlooks the town: from that elevated point the Genoese, once masters of this whole coast, scanned the sea like birds of prey, and woe to the foreign vessels tempest driven within their range! Balaclava, with its Greek population, its girdle of rocks, and its mild climate, resembles those little towns of the Archipelago that are seen specking the horizon as one sails towards Constantinople.
While we remained on board waiting for the completion of the custom-house formalities, we were entertained with the most picturesque and animated scene imaginable. It was Sunday, and the whole population was scattered over the shore and the adjoining heights. Groups of sailors, Arnaouts, and girls as gracefully formed as those of the Grecian isles, were ascending the steep path to the fortress, or were dancing to the shrill music of a balalaika. All the balconies were filled with spectators, who were busy, no doubt, discussing the apparition of a brig in their port; for the trade of Balaclava, so flourishing under the Genoese, is now fallen to such a degree that the arrival of a single vessel is an event for the whole town.
Balaclava, the Cembalo of the Genoese, is now the humble capital of a little Greek colony founded in the reign of Catherine II., and now numbering several villages with 600 families. During her wars with the Porte, the empress thought of appealing to the national sentiments of the Greeks, and their hatred of the Turks. The result answered her expectations, and Russia soon had a large naval force that displayed the most signal bravery in all its encounters with the enemy. When the campaign against Turkey was ended, the Greek auxiliaries took part in the military operations in the Crimea; and after the conquest of the peninsula, they were employed in suppressing the revolts of the Tatars, and striking terror into them by the sanguinary cruelty of their expeditions. It was at that period the Mussulmans of the Crimea gave them the name of Arnaouts, which they have retained ever since.
The peninsula having been finally subjugated, the Greeks were formed into a regimental colony, with the town and territory of Balaclava for their residence. They now number 600 fighting men, who are only employed in guarding the coasts. The colonist is only liable to be called out for active service during four months in the year; the other eight he has at his own disposal for the cultivation of his lands. Each soldier has twenty-eight rubles yearly pay, and finds his own equipment.
The day after our arrival at Balaclava we made a boating excursion to examine the geology of the coast, and landed in a beautiful little cove lined with flowering trees and shrubs. On our return the boatmen made themselves coronals of hawthorn and blossoming apple sprays, and decorated the boat with garlands of the same, and in this festive style we made our entry into Balaclava. In our poetic enthusiasm as we looked on the lovely sky, the placid sea, and the Greek mariners, who thus retained on a foreign shore, and after the lapse of so many centuries, the cheerful customs of their ancestors, we could not help comparing ourselves to one of the numerous deputations that used every year to enter the Pyraeus, with their vessels' prows festooned with flowers, to take part in the brilliant festivals of Athens.
We bade adieu that day to our excellent friend M. Taitbout de Marigny, who continued his cruise to Ialta, where we were again to meet him. We set out for the convent of St. George, our minds filled with classical reminiscences, which fortified us to endure the horrible bumping of our pereclatnoi. This vehicle is a sort of low four-wheeled cart, so narrow as barely to accommodate two persons, who have nothing to sit on but boxes and packages laid on a great heap of hay. It is no easy matter to keep one's balance on such a seat, especially when the frail equipage is galloped along from post to post at the full speed of three stout horses. Yet this is the manner in which most Russians travel, and often for a week together, day and night.
The road from Balaclava to the monastery presents no striking features; it runs over a vast plateau, as barren as the steppes. A little before sunset we were quite close to the convent, but saw nothing indicative of its existence, and were, therefore, not a little surprised when the driver jumped down and told us to alight. We thought he was making game of us, when he led the way into an arched passage, but when we reached the further end a cry of admiration escaped our lips, as we beheld the monastery with its cells backed against the rock, its green-domed church, its terraces and blooming gardens, suspended several hundred feet above the sea. Long did we remain wrapt in contemplation of the magic effect produced by man's labour on a scene that looked in its savage and contorted aspect as if it had been destined only to be the domain of solitude.
The Russian and Greek monasteries are far from displaying the monumental appearance of the western convents. They consist only of a group of small houses of one story, built without symmetry, and with nothing about them denoting the austere habits of a religious community. Those poetic souls who find such food for meditation in the long galleries of the cloisters, could not easily be reconciled to such a disregard for form. The monks received us not like Christians, but like downright pagans. The bishop, for whom we had letters, happening to be absent, we fell into the hands of two or three surly-looking friars, whose dirty dress and red faces indicated habits any thing but monastic. They confined us in a disgustingly filthy hole, where a few crazy chairs, two or three rough planks on tressels, and a nasty candle stuck in a bottle, were all the accommodation we obtained from their munificence. Our dragoman could not even get coals to boil the kettle without paying for it double what it was worth. When we remonstrated with the monks their invariable answer was, that they were not bound to provide us with any thing but the bare furniture of the table. Such was their notion of the duties of hospitality.
With our bones aching from the pereclatnoi we were obliged to content ourselves with a few cups of tea by way of supper, and to lie down on the execrable planks they had the assurance to call a bed. Fortunately, the bishop returned next day, and we got a cleaner room, mattresses, pillows, plenty to eat, and more respectful treatment on the part of the monks; but all this could not reconcile us to men who had such a curious way of practising the precepts of the gospel. The few days we spent among them were enough to enable us to judge of the degree of ignorance and moral degradation in which they live. Religion which, in default of instruction, ought at least to mould their souls to the Christian virtues, and to love of their neighbours, has no influence over them. They do not understand it, and their gross instincts find few impediments in the statutes of their order. Sloth, drunkenness, and fanaticism, stand them instead of faith, love, and charity.
The great steepness of this part of the coast renders the descent to the sea extremely difficult. We tried it, however, and with a good deal of hard work we scrambled down to the beach, which is here only a few yards wide. Magnificent volcanic rocks form in this place a natural colonnade, the base of which is constantly washed by the sea, whilst every craggy point is tenanted by marine birds, the only living creatures to be seen.
On our return to the convent we found it full of beggars who had come for the annual festival that was to be held on the day but one following. Cake and fruit-sellers, gipsies and Tatars, had set up their booths and tents on the plateau; every thing betokened that the solemnity would be very brilliant, but we had not the curiosity to wait for it. We set out that evening for Stavropol, glad to get away from a convent in which hospitality is not bestowed freely, but sold.
On leaving the monastery we proceeded first of all in the direction of Cape Khersonese, the most western point of this classic land, where flourished, for more than twelve centuries, the celebrated colony of Kherson, founded by the Heracleans 600 years B. C. At present the only remains of all its greatness are a few heaps of shapeless stones; and strange to relate, the people who put the last hand to the destruction of whatever had escaped the barbarian invasions and the Mussulman sway, was the same whose conversion to Christianity in the person of the Grand Duke Vladimir, was celebrated by Kherson in 988. When the Russians entered the Crimea some considerable architectural remains were still standing, among which were the principal gate of the town and its two towers, and a large portion of the walls; besides which there were shafts and capitals of columns, numerous inscriptions and three churches of the Lower Empire, half buried under the soil. But Muscovite vandalism quickly swept away all these remains. A quarantine establishment for the new port of Sevastopol was constructed on the site of the ancient Heraclean town, and all the existing vestiges of its monuments were rapidly demolished and carried away stone by stone; and but for the direct interference of the Emperor Alexander, who caused a few inscriptions to be deposited in the museum of Nicolaief, there would be nothing remaining in our day to attest the existence of one of the most opulent cities of the northern coasts of the Black Sea.
At a short distance from Cape Khersonese begins that succession of ports which render this point of the Crimea so important to Russia; one of them is Sevastopol, whence the imperial fleet commands the whole of the Black Sea, and incessantly threatens the existence of the sultan's empire. Between Cape Khersonese and the Sevastopol roads which comprise three important ports, there are six distinct bays running inland parallel to each other. First come the Double Bay (Dvoinaia) and the Bay of the Cossack (Cozatchaia), between which the Heracleans founded their first establishment, no trace of which now exists. Then comes the Round Bay (Kruglaia), that of the Butts (Strelezkaia), and that of the Sands (Pestchannaia). These five are all abandoned, and are only used by vessels driven by stress of weather to seek shelter in them. It was in the space between the Bay of the Sands and that more to the west where the quarantine is established, that the celebrated Kherson once stood.
A little beyond the quarantine cove, the traveller discovers Sevastopol, situated on the slope of a hill between Artillery and South bays, the first two ports on the right hand as you enter the main roads. The position of the town thus built in an amphitheatre, renders its whole plan discernible at one view, and gives it a very grand appearance from a distance. Its barracks and stores, the extensive buildings of the admiralty, the numerous churches, and vast ship-building docks and yards, attest the importation of this town, the creation of which dates only from the arrival of the Russians in the Crimea. The interior, though not quite corresponding to the brilliant panorama it presents from a distance, is yet worthy of the great naval station. The streets are large, the houses handsome, and the population, in consequence of an imperial ukase which excludes the Jews from its territory, is much less repulsive than that of Odessa, Kherson, Iekaterinoslav, &c.
The port of Sevastopol is unquestionably one of the most remarkable in Europe. It owes all its excellence to nature, which has here, without the aid of art, provided a magnificent roadstead with ramifications, forming so many basins admirably adapted for the requirements of a naval station. The whole of this noble harbour may be seen at once from the upper part of the town. The great roadstead first attracts attention. It lies east and west, stretching seven kilometres (four miles and three-quarters) inland, with a mean breadth of 1000 yards, and serves as a station for all the active part of the fleet. It forms the medium of communication between Sevastopol and the interior of the peninsula. The northern shore presents only a line of cliffs of no interest, but on the southern shore the eye is detained by the fine basins formed there by nature. To the east, at the very foot of the hill on which the town stands, is South Bay, in length upwards of 3000 metres, and completely sheltered by high limestone cliffs. It is here the vessels are rigged and unrigged; and here, too, lies a long range of pontoons and vessels past service, some of which are converted into magazines, and others into lodgings for some thousand convicts who are employed in the works of the arsenal. Among these numerous veterans of a naval force that is almost always idle, the traveller beholds with astonishment the colossal ship, the Paris, formerly mounting 120 guns, and which was, down to 1829, the finest vessel in the imperial fleet.
Beyond South Bay, and communicating with it, is the little creek in which the government is constructing the most considerable works of the port, and has been engaged for many years in forming an immense dock with five distinct basins, capable of accommodating three ships of the line and two frigates, while simultaneously undergoing repairs. The original plan for this great work was devised by M. Raucourt, a French engineer, who estimated the total cost at about 6,000,000 rubles. The magnitude of this sum alarmed the government, but at the instance of Count Voronzof, they accepted the proposals of an English engineer, who asked only 2,500,000, and promised to complete the whole within five years. The work was begun on the 17th of June, 1832; but when we visited Sevastopol, some years after the first stone had been laid, the job was not half finished, and the expenses already exceeded 9,000,000 rubles. The execution of the basins seems, however, to be very far from corresponding to the enormous expenses they have already occasioned, and it is strange, indeed, that a weak and friable limestone should have been employed in hydraulic constructions of such importance. The angles of the walls, it is true, are of granite or porphyry, but this odd association of heterogeneous materials conveys, in itself, the severest condemnation of the mode of construction which has been adopted.
Highly favoured as is the port of Sevastopol with regard to the form and the security of its bays, it yet labours under very serious inconveniences. The waters swarm with certain worms that attack the ships' bottoms, and often make them unserviceable in two or three years. To avoid this incurable evil, the government determined to fill the basins with fresh water, by changing the course of the little river, Tchernoi Retchka, which falls into the head of the main gulf. Three aqueducts and two tunnels, built like the rest of the works in chalk, and forming part of the artificial channel, were nearly completed in 1841; but about that period the engineers endured a very sad discomfiture, it being then demonstrated that the worms they wanted to get rid of were produced by nothing else than the muddy waters which the Tchernoi Retchka pours into the harbour.[67]
Artillery Bay, which bounds the town on the west, is used only by trading vessels. This and Careening Bay, the most eastern of all, are not inferior in natural advantages to the two others we have been speaking of; but we have nothing more particular to mention respecting them.
After discussing the harbours and the works belonging to them, we are naturally led to glance at the war-fleet, and the famous fortifications of which the Russians are so proud, and which they regard as a marvel of modern art. In 1831, when the July revolution was threatening to upset the whole status quo of Europe, a London journal stated in an article on the Black Sea and Southern Russia, that nothing could be easier than for a few well-appointed vessels to set fire to the imperial fleet in the port of Sevastopol. The article alarmed the emperor's council to the highest degree, and orders were immediately issued for the construction of immense defensive works.
Four new forts were constructed, making a total of eleven batteries. Forts Constantine and Alexander were erected for the defence of the great harbour, the one on the north, the other on the west side of Artillery Bay; and the Admiralty and the Paul batteries were to play on vessels attempting to enter South Bay, or Ships' Bay. These four forts, consisting each of three tiers of batteries, and each mounting from 250 to 300 pieces of artillery, constitute the chief defences of the place, and appear, at first sight, truly formidable. But here again, the reality does not correspond with the outer appearance, and we are of opinion that all these costly batteries are more fitted to astonish the vulgar in time of peace, than to awe the enemy in war. In the first place their position at some height above the level of the sea, and their three stories appear to us radically bad, and practical men will agree with us that a hostile squadron might make very light of the three tiers of guns which, when pointed horizontally, could, at most, only hit the rigging of the ships. The internal arrangements struck us as equally at variance with all the rules of military architecture: each story consists of a suite of rooms opening one upon the other, and communicating by a small door, with an outer gallery that runs the whole length of the building. All these rooms, in which the guns are worked, are so narrow, and the ventilation is so ill-contrived, that we are warranted by our own observation in asserting that a few discharges would make it extremely difficult for the artillerymen to do their duty. But a still more serious defect than those we have named, and one which endangers the whole existence of the works, consists in the general system adopted for their construction.
Here the improvidence of the government has been quite as great as with regard to the dock basins: for the imperial engineers have thought proper to employ small pieces of coarse limestone in the masonry of three-storied batteries, mounting from 250 to 300 guns. The works, too, have been constructed with so little care, and the dimensions of the walls and arches are so insufficient, that it is easy to see at a glance, that all these batteries must inevitably be shaken to pieces whenever their numerous artillery shall be brought into play. The trials that have been made in Fort Constantine, have already demonstrated the correctness of this opinion, wide rents having been there occasioned in the walls by a few discharges.
Finally, all the forts labour under the disadvantage of being utterly defenceless on the land side. Thinking only of attacks by sea, the government has quite overlooked the great facility with which an enemy may land on any part of the coast of the Khersonese. So, besides that the batteries are totally destitute of artillery and ditches on the land side, the town itself is open on all points, and is not defended by a single redoubt. We know not what works have been planned or executed since 1841; but at the period of our visit a force of some thousand men, aided by a maritime demonstration, would have had no sort of difficulty in forcing their way into the interior of the place, and setting fire to the fleet and the arsenals.
We have now to speak of the offensive strength of the Port of Sevastopol, that famous fleet always in readiness to sail against Constantinople. The effective of the Black Sea fleet, in 1841, was as follows:--
Ships of the line 13, 2 of 120 guns, the rest of 84 Frigates 6 mounting 60 guns Corvettes 6 " 20 Brigs 10 " 10 to 20 Schooners 5 Cutters 10 Steamers 5 Tenders 25
The largest tenders are of 750 tons' burden, the smallest thirty. The crews, making together fourteen battalions, ought to be 14,000 strong. But we know that in Russia official figures are always much higher than the reality. We think we cannot be far wrong in setting down the actual strength at 6000 or 8000 men.
Like every thing else in Russia, the ships of war look very imposing at first sight, but will not bear a very close scrutiny. After what we have stated respecting the venality of the administrative departments, it is easy to conceive the malversations that must abound in the naval arsenals. In vain may the government lavish its money and order the purchase of the needful materials; its intentions are sure to be baffled by the corruption and rapacity of its servants. The vessels are generally built of worthless materials, and there is no kind of peculation but is practised in their construction. We have mentioned the Paris as an instance of the short duration of Russian ships: and all the vessels of the same period are in nearly as bad a plight. A single cruise has been enough to make them unserviceable. We must, however, admit that the naval boards are not alone to blame for this rapid destruction. According to the information we have received, it appears that the ships are built generally of pine or fir; but every one knows that these kinds of wood, produced in moist places and low bottoms, cannot possess the solidity required in naval architecture.
Before quitting Sevastopol we made an excursion to the head of the great bay, to visit the remains of a once celebrated town, of which nothing now remains but some ruins known under the name Inkermann. We explored with some interest a long suite of crypts, some of which seem to belong to the remotest antiquity, while others evidently date from the Lower Empire. Among the latter we particularly noticed a large chapel, excavated wholly in the rock, and presenting in its interior all the characteristics of the Byzantine churches. Above all these subterraneous edifices, on the highest part of the rocks, stand some fragments of walls, the sole remains of the castle and town that formerly crowned those heights. The ruins appear to occupy the site of the ancient Eupatorion of Strabo, which afterwards, under the name of Theodori, became the seat of a little Greek principality dependent on the Lower Empire. It was taken by the Turks in 1475, and soon afterwards totally destroyed.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] See notes at the end of the volume.