I was travelling post from Tiflis. The only baggage on my little cart was a single small portmanteau, half of it stuffed with notes from my travels in Georgia. Fortunately for you, most of them are now lost; but fortunately for me, the portmanteau and the rest of its contents have survived.
The sun was already setting behind the snow-covered mountain ridge when I entered the Koishaur Valley. The Ossetian coachman was tirelessly whipping up his horses so as to reach the top of Koishaur Mountain before nightfall, and singing songs at the top of his voice. What a splendid place that valley is!* Inaccessible mountains on every side, reddish cliffs overhung with green ivy and crowned with thickets of plane trees, yellow precipices streaked with rivulets; high, high overhead the velvety gold of the snows, and below us the Aragva, swallowing up some other nameless little stream that erupts noisily out of a murky black ravine, and runs on, a silver thread, glittering like the scales on a snake.
When we reached the foot of Koishaur Mountain, we stopped by an inn. A score of Georgians and mountain folk swarmed noisily around it, and a camel caravan had stopped there for the night. I needed to hire oxen to drag my little cart up that damned mountain, for autumn had come and there was ice on the road—and the mountain is about two versts uphill.*
There was nothing for it, so I hired six oxen and a number of Ossetians. One of them loaded my portmanteau onto his shoulders, the rest set about driving the oxen on, though all they did was shout at them.
Behind my cart was another one, drawn by four oxen without the slightest difficulty—although it was loaded to the roof. That situation surprised me. Its master followed behind on foot, puffing on a little silver-mounted Kabarda pipe.* He wore an officer’s tunic with no epaulettes and a Circassian fur hat.
He looked about fifty, and his swarthy complexion spoke of long acquaintance with the southern Caucasian sun. His prematurely grey moustache was out of keeping with his firm step and brisk appearance. I went over to him and bowed; he bowed silently in response and blew out a great cloud of smoke.
‘It seems we’re fellow-travellers, then?’
He bowed silently again.
‘I suppose you’re on your way to Stavropol?’
‘Yes, sir—carrying official goods.’
‘Do tell me—how is it that your four oxen make nothing of pulling your heavy cart, while six of the beasts can barely manage to shift my empty one with these Ossetians lending a hand?’
He gave me a sly smile and a meaningful look.
‘I guess you haven’t been long in the Caucasus?’
‘About a year,’ I replied.
He smiled again.
‘Why, what is it?’
‘Well, that’s how it is! Dreadful villains, these Asiatics! You think they’re helping you with all that shouting? What the devil do we know about what they’re shouting? The oxen understand them, though. You could harness twenty of them together, and if these people shout at them in their own way, the oxen won’t move from the spot. Terrible scoundrels! But what can you do with them? They love taking money off travellers… We’ve spoiled them rotten, the swindlers! You’ll see, they’ll get a tip out of you for vodka as well. I know these people, they won’t fool me!’
‘Have you been serving here long?’
‘Yes, I was here under Alexei Petrovich,*’ he answered, drawing himself up, and added, ‘When he came to serve on the Line, I was a junior lieutenant. I was twice promoted under him for actions against the mountain people.’
‘And where are you now?’
‘In the Third Line Battalion. What about you, if I may ask?’
I told him. On that our conversation ended, and we carried on walking in silence, side by side. At the top of the mountain we found snow. The sun went down, and night followed day without a break, as generally happens in the South; but the reflected light from the snow allowed us to make out the road clearly. It was still climbing, though less steeply. I got my portmanteau loaded onto the cart, ordered horses to be harnessed instead of the oxen, and took a last look down into the valley—but the thick mist rolling in waves out of the crevasses completely hid it from view, and not a sound now reached us from down there. The Ossetians surrounded me noisily, demanding tips for vodka; but the staff captain shouted so threateningly at them that they made off at once.
‘What a people!’ he exclaimed. ‘They can’t even say “bread” in Russian, but they’ve learned how to say “Officer, tip for vodka!” Give me the Tatars* any day—at least they don’t drink…’
We were still about a verst from the station. Everything was so quiet around us, you could follow a mosquito’s flight by its hum. To our left was a deep, black ravine; beyond it and ahead of us were dark blue mountain peaks, pitted and ridged and covered with layers of snow, standing out against a pale horizon with the last glimmer of twilight still lingering upon it. Stars were beginning to shimmer in the dark sky, and I had the odd feeling that the sky was much higher than it is in our northern regions. Naked black boulders rose up on either side of the road. Here and there, a shrub peeped out from under the snow, but not a single dry leaf moved, and amidst this dead sleep of nature it was a pleasure to hear the tired snorting of the postal troika, or the irregular clinking of a little Russian bell.*
‘Tomorrow will be a wonderful day!’ I said. The staff captain said not a word in reply, but pointed at a high mountain directly facing us.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Gud-Gora.’
‘Well, what of it?’
‘See how it’s smoking.’
And indeed, smoke was rising from Gud-Gora. Light wisps of cloud crept about its flanks, while over its peak lay a black stormcloud, so black that it looked like a blot against the dark sky.
We could already make out the post-station and the roofs of the surrounding huts, and welcoming lights were twinkling ahead of us, when a cold, damp wind blew up, a howling sound came from the ravine, and a fine drizzle started. I had barely thrown my cape over me when it began snowing hard. I looked at the staff captain in admiration.
‘We’ll have to spend the night here,’ he said in some annoyance. ‘You’ll never get across the mountains in a blizzard like this. Hey,’ he asked the driver, ‘have there been any avalanches on the Krestovaya?’*
‘No, sir,’ replied the Ossetian driver; ‘but there’s overhanging snow up there, lots and lots of it.’
The post-station did not have a room for travellers, so we were shown a smoky hut to sleep in. I invited my fellow-traveller to take a glass of tea together, since I had an iron teapot with me—my one comfort on my travels in the Caucasus.
The hut was built against the cliff on one side; three wet and slippery steps led up to the door. I felt my way in and bumped into a cow (these people have byres in place of servants’ rooms). I didn’t know where to put myself—sheep bleating here, a dog growling there. Luckily there was a dim light at one side, which led me to another opening that made do for a door. Here I came upon quite an interesting picture—a wide hut with a roof resting on two smoke-blackened posts, and filled with people. A fire built on the earth floor crackled in the middle of the room, and the smoke, blown back by the wind from a hole in the roof, spread about us in such a dense blanket that it was a long time before I could see around me. By the fireside sat two old women, a multitude of children, and one scrawny Georgian man, all clothed in rags. There was nothing for it—we made ourselves comfortable by the fireside, lit our pipes, and soon the teapot started to hiss invitingly.
‘What sorry folk!’ I said to the staff captain, pointing to our grubby hosts, who were gazing wordlessly at us, seemingly in a daze.
‘The stupidest ever!’ he replied. ‘Would you believe it? They’re no good at anything, and you can’t educate them. Our Kabardinians and Chechens, now—they may be robbers and ragamuffins, but still they’re real daredevils. This lot aren’t even interested in weapons—you won’t see a proper dagger on any of them. Downright Ossetians!’
‘Have you been in Chechnya long?’
‘Yes, I spent ten years stationed in a fortress there, at Kamenny Brod*—know it?’
‘I’ve heard of it.’
‘Well, my God, weren’t we sick to death of those cut-throats. Nowadays, thank goodness, things are quieter—but at the time you’d only have to walk a hundred steps outside the stockade and there’d be some shaggy devil sitting watching out for you—and if you so much as yawned, you’d find a noose round your neck or a bullet in your head. Fine fellows, though!’