for small feet as the Chinese, and, as they are constantly on horseback, their short boots cause them no great inconvenience. But for these reasons they are very bad pedestrians, their "cribbed, cabined, and confined" foot-gear obliges them to walk on their toes; and their distress is great when they have no horse to mount.
Like all pastoral people, the Kalmuks live frugally, because their wants are few, and their nomadic life is unfavourable to the growth of a liking for luxuries. They live chiefly upon milk and butter, with tea for their favourite beverage. Their bill of fare also includes meat, and particularly horse-flesh, which they prefer to any other, but they do not eat it raw, as some writers have pretended. As for cereals, which Europeans value so highly, their use is scarcely known; it is at rare intervals only that some of them buy bread or oatcake from the neighbouring Russians. Their mode of preparing tea would not commend itself to the denizens of Mayfair. It comes to them from China in the shape of very hard bricks, composed of the leaves and coarsest portions of the plant. After boiling it for a considerable time in water, they add milk, butter, and salt. The infusion then acquires consistency, and a dull red colour. "We tasted the beverage," says Madame de Hell, "at Prince Tumene's, but must confess it was perfectly detestable… They say, however, that one easily gets accustomed to it, and eventually learns to think it delicious. It has, however, one good quality. By strongly stimulating perspiration it serves as an excellent preservative against the effect of sudden chills. The Kalmuks drink it out of round shallow little wooden vessels, to which they often attach a very high value. I have seen several," adds our traveller, "which were priced at two or three horses. They are generally made of roots brought from Asia. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Kalmuks know nothing of tea-kettles, and make their beverage in large iron pots. Next to tea, they love spirituous liquors. From mare's milk or ass's milk they manufacture a kind of brandy; but as it is a very feeble stimulant, they eagerly seek after Russian liquors; and therefore, to prevent the fatal consequences of their mania, the government has forbidden the establishment of any dram-shops among their hordes. The women crave the deadly liquor no less ardently than the men, but are so closely watched by their lords and masters that they have few opportunities of indulging the taste."
Among the Kalmuks, as among most Oriental peoples, the stronger sex looks with contempt upon all household matters, abandoning them entirely to the women; who work and take charge of the children, keep the tents in order, make up the garments and furs of the family, and attend to the cattle. The men hardly condescend to groom their horses; they hunt, drink tea or brandy, doze about upon felts, and smoke or sleep. Add to their daily occupations, if such they can be called, their joining in occasional games, such as chess and knuckle-bones, and you have a complete picture of the existence – we will not say life – of a Kalmuk paterfamilias. At their laborious days, however, the women never repine; they are accustomed to the burden, and bear it cheerfully; but they age very early, and after a few years of wedlock, not only lose their good looks, but acquire a coarseness of feature and a robustness of figure which make it exceedingly difficult to distinguish them from men. Nor is the difficulty lessened by the fact that the costume of both sexes is closely alike.
At Astrakhan the most dangerous as well as the most arduous part of the expedition of our two travellers began. They were compelled to carry provisions with them, if they did not wish to perish of hunger on the steppes. An escort was therefore necessary, and the Russian governor selected for the post one of his best officers; a young man famed for his skill as a hunter, and as the happy owner of a falcon from which he would never separate. Satisfied with providing so competent a purveyor, the governor, in presenting him to the travellers, said; "Now my conscience is at rest! I give you a brave soldier to protect you, and a travelling companion who will take care that you are not starved to death in the desert."
From Astrakhan they pushed forward to Vladimirofka, a town on the Kuma, which they entered with a good deal of pomp and circumstance. A britchka, drawn by three camels, and carrying Monsieur and Madame de Hell, led the van; then came a troop of four or five Cossacks, armed to the teeth, and several Kalmuks guiding a train of camels loaded with baggage. The Cossack officer, with falcon on wrist, and his long rifle slung behind him, rode by the side of the carriage, ready, with Muscovite precision, to transmit orders to the escort, and gallop off at the slightest signal; whilst the dragoman lolled on the box-seat with a fine air of contemptuous indifference to everything around him. After a few days' rest and refreshment, they resumed their journey, advancing rapidly towards the Caucasus, of which the highest summit, Mount Elburz, from time to time afforded them a glimpse of its lofty head, which was almost always shrouded in mist, as if to conceal it from the profane gaze. Tradition avows that Noah's dove alighted on its peak, and plucked thence the mystic branch which has ever since been hallowed as symbolic of peace and hope.
"We were now," writes Madame de Hell, "in an enchanted region, though but just beyond the verge of the steppes. The faint lines that chequered the sky gradually assumed a greater distinctness of form and colour; at first the mountains seemed so many light, transparent vapours, floating upon the wind; but by degrees the airy vision developed into forest-crowned mountains, deep shadowy gorges, and domes clothed with mists. Our minds were almost overwhelmed with a multitude of emotions, excited by the prodigal nature before us, the magnificent vegetation, and the various hues of forest and mountain, peak, crag, ravine, and snowy summits. It was beautiful, superbly beautiful, and then it was the Caucasus! The Caucasus – a name associated with so many grand historic memories, with the earliest traditions and most fabulous creeds – the abode, in the world's grey morning, of the races whence have sprung so many famous nations. Around it hangs all the vague poetry of the ages, visible only to the imagination through the mysterious veil of antiquity."
At Georgief they rested on the threshold of the Caucasus. Thence they proceeded to Piatigorsk, celebrated for its mineral waters. On the road they fell in with a troop of Circassians. "I shall never forget," says Madame de Hell, "the glances which they flung on our Cossacks as they passed by, though it was only in looks they durst manifest the hatred that seethed in their hearts against everything Russian. They were all fully armed. Beneath their black bourkas glittered the sheen of their pistols and their damasked poniards. I confess their appearance pleased me most when they were just vanishing from sight on the summit of a hill, where their martial figures were outlined against the sky. Seeing them through the mist, I began to think of Ossian's heroes."
Piatigorsk is not so much a town as a pleasant cluster of country-houses, inhabited for some months of the year by a rich aristocracy. All about it is gay and pretty, and everywhere are those signs of affluence which the Russian nobles love to see around them. Nothing offends the eye; nothing touches the heart; there are no poor, no squalid huts, no indication of the wretchedness of poverty. It is a terrestrial Elysium, where great ladies and princes, courtiers and generals, look out upon none but agreeable images, selected from all that is charming in art and nature. Thermal springs are found on most of the surrounding heights, and the works that afford access to them do credit to the skill of the Russian engineers and the liberality of the Russian government. On one of the loftiest peaks rises an octagonal building, consisting of a cupola resting upon slender shapely columns, which are encircled at their base by a graceful balustrade. The interior, open on all sides, contains an Æolian harp, the melancholy notes of which, blending with all the mountain echoes, descend softly to the valley.
The route of our travellers, after quitting Piatigorsk, lay along the broad deep valley of the Pod Kouwa, which, on the right, is bounded by rocks piled one upon another, like billows suddenly petrified, and bearing witness to some great upheaval in the past; on the left, tier after tier of richly wooded mountains rise gradually to the majestic chain of the Kazbek. Eventually the road leaves the valley, at a point where it has become very narrow, and traverses a long sinuous ledge, parallel with the course of the torrent, until it begins to enter the mountains. Here the miry soil through which their horses had laboured with much difficulty, and the grey sky, and the moist atmosphere that had hitherto accompanied them, were at once exchanged for a dry air, cold, dust, and sunshine. This sudden contrast is a phenomenon peculiar to elevated regions.
Madame de Hell was strongly impressed by the wild picturesque character of the scenery of this part of the Caucasus. At
