A Vagabond In The Caucasus - free ebook by Stephen Graham

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A Vagabond In The Caucasus

Stephen Graham

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42 chapters

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Portions of Chapters VI., VII., IX., XI., XXVIII. appeared originally in articles contributed to Country Life , and Chapter XXII. and parts of II., X., XXXIII. in articles contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette , to the Editors of which journals the author desires to make all due acknowledgment....

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PROLOGUE HOW I CAME TO BE A TRAMP

PROLOGUE HOW I CAME TO BE A TRAMP

I BROUGHT myself up on Carlyle and found him the dearest, gentlest, bravest, noblest man. The Life by Froude was dearer to me than the Gospel of St Matthew, or Hamlet, or Macbeth, and that is saying much if the reader only knew me. Carlyle was so near that I saw him in dreams and spoke with him in words that were true, unquestionably. In the vision world of my dream he behaved exactly as he would have done in real life, I am sure of it. He was flesh and blood to me. Yet he died and was buried be

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CHAPTER I ROBBED IN THE TRAIN

CHAPTER I ROBBED IN THE TRAIN

GERMANY is a safe country. One is not permitted to lose oneself there. I, for my part, knew not a word of German beyond nicht hinauslehnen , which means: don’t put your head out at the window; but I had no misadventures there. The trains leave punctually, the carriages are all clean, the porters know their duty. One contrast has particularly impressed me. In Russia, in second or even in first-class carriages, washing accommodation is very poor. Often there is no water, and there is seldom a stop

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I

I

NICHOLAS was twenty-one years of age and was the eldest child. His father, who was the village deacon, was in his prime. Six feet high, broad-shouldered, he was a proper figure of a man. Thick black hair hung down his back. His high-domed forehead and well-formed aquiline nose reminded one of Tennyson. His wife was a short, dear woman, who moved about in little steps—the sort of woman that never wears out, tender and gentle, but, at the same time, strong-bodied and hardy. The two of them welcome

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II

II

The succeeding week was an orgy of eating and drinking. I had already spent one Christmas in England and had eaten not less than a big man’s share of turkey and plum-pudding, but I was destined to out-do in Russia every table feat that our homely English board had witnessed. On Christmas Day alone I ate and drank, for courtesy, at eight different houses. Nicholas accomplished prodigious feats, and the worthy deacon was as much beyond Nicholas as the latter was beyond me. Let me describe the spre

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CHAPTER III MUMMERS AT A COUNTRY HOUSE

CHAPTER III MUMMERS AT A COUNTRY HOUSE

ON St Stephen’s Day we drove in sledges to a country house. I feasted my eyes on a wonderful sight—high trees standing between the white ground and the great sun, and casting strange shadows on the whitest snow, and between the shadows a thousand living sparkles literally shot flames from the glistening snow. I had never seen anything like it before; it was very beautiful. We left the forest and passed over a vast plain of tumbled snow. There was snow everywhere as far as the eye could see. The

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CHAPTER IV AT UNCLE’S

CHAPTER IV AT UNCLE’S

UNCLE was station-master of a little place called Rubezhniya, a village of ten families. Rubezhniya is on the edge of a great forest, though, I think, that in Russia they call it a little wood. It extends a few hundred miles, but then there is a forest in Russia where a squirrel might travel straight on eastward four thousand miles, going from branch to branch and never touching earth once. Rubezhniya is also on the black land, and its peasants have money in the autumn, though, it may be remarke

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CHAPTER V AMONG MOSCOW STUDENTS

CHAPTER V AMONG MOSCOW STUDENTS

AT Kharkov, on my return journey, I recovered half of my lost luggage; the other half, a box full of books and papers, had not turned up: neither by bribes nor by words could it be found. We spent a whole day searching the Customs House, but failed to find any trace of it. I learned afterwards that it had been left behind at Ostend, through the negligence of a porter there. The loss of this box was a matter of sorrow. All through the winter I felt the loss of it. It was only in April, after imme

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CHAPTER VI “LOVE US WHEN WE ARE DIRTY FOR EVERYONE WILL LOVE US WHEN WE ARE CLEAN!”

CHAPTER VI “LOVE US WHEN WE ARE DIRTY FOR EVERYONE WILL LOVE US WHEN WE ARE CLEAN!”

IN February Moscow was overrun by an epidemic of typhus. It did not spring from the frozen drains so much as from the indigestible black bread which is sold in the poorer parts of the city. On 10th February I gave up black bread for ever; I have not eaten it since—at least not Moscow black bread; Caucasian black bread is another matter. The bread diet had become too much for me. I lay in bed all one day feeling more dead than alive, and the prospect of typhus seemed very real. I recovered, and t

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CHAPTER VII A NIGHT AT A SHRINE

CHAPTER VII A NIGHT AT A SHRINE

LIFE at Moscow was very full during the ensuing two months. What the students did I did. Each night there was some new diversion; a visit to the Narodny Dom with dancing and confetti fights until three in the morning, or a skating masquerade at Chisty Prudy. Sometimes we would go in sledges to Petrovsky Park; other times we would go to the Kremlin and climb up the steeple of St John’s. These days were full of variety and entertainment. One evening I presented myself at the stage-door of the Thea

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CHAPTER VIII THE DAY AFTER THE FEAST

CHAPTER VIII THE DAY AFTER THE FEAST

THE day after a church festival is always the Feast of St Lombard. Outside all the pawnbrokers’ establishments one sees crowds of poor people drawn up in line—men, women, children, but mostly women. It is a pitiable sight. Each person is carrying the article to be pledged, and whether it be a samovar or a chair, or a petticoat or a pair of trousers, it is never wrapped up. Russians are not ashamed. The queue which I saw near the Tverskaya a street long, the day after my return from Sergievo, wou

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CHAPTER IX A MUSHROOM FAIR IN LENT

CHAPTER IX A MUSHROOM FAIR IN LENT

I HAD been out one morning looking at St Saviour’s and tasting the March sunshine, and I returned to the Kislovka unexpectedly. Nicholas, taken by surprise, was grinding at mathematics very gloomily. I had never seen him so despondent, so melancholy. He looked at me very sadly when I sat down beside him and began to chat. “Why are you going to leave me?” he asked. I had told him that I should not remain in Moscow beyond Easter, and we were then in Lent. “Why will you not wait till June and then

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CHAPTER X DEPARTURE FROM MOSCOW

CHAPTER X DEPARTURE FROM MOSCOW

ALL the winter I had been in correspondence with Kharkov in connection with my lost luggage. Early in April I received a notification that the box had been found. The Customs House then sent me in a bill of charges, so much for every day the box had remained in their possession. The railway and Customs made two pounds profit out of the loss of my box; they actually charged me for the loss! So slowly, moreover, did the business go forward that it seemed to me I should not recover my property befo

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CHAPTER XI THE COMING OF SUMMER IN THE CAUCASUS

CHAPTER XI THE COMING OF SUMMER IN THE CAUCASUS

ANYTHING more wonderful than the change from winter to summer on the Caucasian mountain slopes could not easily be imagined. In April the plains were deep in snow, and in May, when English woods were leafing, every tree and bush looked stark and bare. Only by an occasional sallow in bloom one knew that the winter was over. The snowdrops and blue-bells sprang up in winter’s traces, and then verdure danced out and clothed valley and slope up even to the summit of some low hills. The English spring

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CHAPTER XII THE EPISTLE TO THE CAUCASIANS

CHAPTER XII THE EPISTLE TO THE CAUCASIANS

MY kit for the Caucasus was composed of the following:— and a trunk full of miscellaneous clothes. The books and papers of my recovered box I lent out to Moscow acquaintances or posted to England. My plan for the summer was to find an izba in the depths of the mountains and make a home there. On reaching Vladikavkaz Station I would put my luggage in the cloak-room and set out right away to tramp the mountains until I found what I wanted. Then I would return to Vladikavkaz and fetch my luggage in

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CHAPTER XIII A MOUNTAIN DAWN

CHAPTER XIII A MOUNTAIN DAWN

I HAD turned aside from the track to climb the side of a wooded hill near the Stolovy Mountain; I had an idea that I might find a sheltered spot among the trees. I had not slept out before, and I feared to be found sleeping by any of the natives. I was not a rich prey for the robber, but in Russia they steal even one’s clothes. There are many stories current in Vladikavkaz which must have a certain amount of foundation in truth. According to a loquacious cabman I listened to in Vladikavkaz, a co

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I

I

AT Dalin-Dalin an old crone served me with sushky biscuits and milk. Her shop had apparently been built to suit her own height, for there was not room for a man to stand up. It was an interesting little shop, and it kept everything, from ink to mushrooms. A large notice on the counter confronted the customer. It said, “No Bargaining,” which was very surprising, and suggested to my mind that the owner might have some connection with Germans, for whoever heard of such a sordid notice being put up

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II

II

As the sun was sinking I found a resting-place soon. I chose a pleasant grassy hollow sheltered by two boulders. It was above the road and just beneath a graveyard: I could see all that happened on the road without standing the chance of being seen myself. But in truth there was little to see, beyond an occasional horseman and an ox-cart now and then. Each man who came rested a little beside the tombs before going on, for the road was a stiff climb. At sunset a party of Mahommedans came and said

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CHAPTER XV THE IKON NOT MADE BY HANDS

CHAPTER XV THE IKON NOT MADE BY HANDS

VLADIMIR ALEXANDROVITCH was, I suppose, one of the minor clergy. It was evident he was very poor; his house consisted of one room only, and was furnished by two chairs and a table. Several Ikons hung on the walls. On the floor a rough black sheepskin mat showed where he slept. He wouldn’t find me a lodging, but bade me welcome to his own. We ate kasha together, buckwheat porridge, and then he put the samovar on and we had tea. The Ikons were all Christ-faces, and they watched us all through the

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CHAPTER XVI AT A MILL ON THE TEREK

CHAPTER XVI AT A MILL ON THE TEREK

THE yard cocks are at feud. There has been some harem trouble and so this is a day of war. Since first crow they have been tumbling over one another, shedding the red gore and eyeing one another terribly. Now, at four of the afternoon, they both show signs of strife. Their grand plumage is dirty, their combs soiled and ugly, their necks gory, their eyes bloodshot and terrible. Their wives, however, seem placid—almost indifferent. Unhappy is the lot of rival Sultans! There are intervals between t

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CHAPTER XVII THE GORGE OF DARIEL

CHAPTER XVII THE GORGE OF DARIEL

LIVING in towns is enervating; it starves both gods and devils. There the half-gods of wit and conversation hold sway. One morning I put a sovereign in my pocket, slung my travelling bed over my shoulder, and resolved to see more of the mountains. The sovereign was in small change. It was a dull, showery day, and the green trees clung to the mountain sides like soft plumage. I walked the whole day along the Georgian road and met no more than two people beyond the little crowd packed into the sta

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CHAPTER XVIII AT A VILLAGE INN

CHAPTER XVIII AT A VILLAGE INN

OUTSIDE Kazbek village two sheep-dogs came up with a great show of ferocity, but I pacified them. I have discovered that they only do this because they are starved, and that if one aims them a bit of bread they become like lambs. The natives’ practice is perhaps more efficacious. They pick up as big a piece of rock as they can find, and hurl it point blank at the beast’s head. I only counsel the reader, should he find himself in such a predicament and not have bread, to offer them a stone. I sle

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CHAPTER XIX “THROUGH SNOW AND ICE”

CHAPTER XIX “THROUGH SNOW AND ICE”

I TOOK the road to the Krestovy Pass. The clouds lowered, and there was the promise of much snow. It was bitterly cold, and the mountains in front were dressed from head to foot in white robes. Two versts from Kobi an avalanche had fallen recently, so that the road would have been impossible but for an emergency tunnel that had providently been constructed at that point. Fifty men were at work shovelling snow into the river-valley, which was itself piled up in bergs of snow. I wondered what was

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CHAPTER XX LAVRENTI CHAM KHOTADZE

CHAPTER XX LAVRENTI CHAM KHOTADZE

MLETI stands on the White Aragva, a beautiful river of clear water, lifting thousands of white foaming ripples. A Russian poet has written: The road goes through the valley of the Aragva for a distance of thirty miles through Pasanaour and Ananaour. I went on towards the first-named village, expecting to sleep there that night. But the unexpected happened. About two versts from Mleti I was sitting by the roadside when a priest came flying past me in a cart. He was shouting and singing, going dow

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CHAPTER XXI ON THE ROAD TO TIFLIS

CHAPTER XXI ON THE ROAD TO TIFLIS

I TOOK my leave of Lavrenti at dawn and set out for Pasanaour. A man with an ox-dray picked me up two miles from the priest’s dwelling, and carried me ten miles at a pace slower than that of walking. The driver belonged to a tribe dwelling on the Black Aragva, consisting of about thirty thousand souls with a quite alien language and distinct customs, the Khevsurs . For one thing, they take their wives for a year on probation before marrying them. This man spoke no Russian, but a Georgian boy who

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CHAPTER XXII A TWO-HUNDRED-MILE WALK

CHAPTER XXII A TWO-HUNDRED-MILE WALK

I WAS at Kutais in the beginning of May, and I walked from that town two hundred miles across the Caucasus to Vladikavkaz, which I am told is a notable feat. It will certainly remain very notable in my mind, both in respect of the sights I saw and of the adventures I survived. I ascended from the Italian loveliness of Imeretia, where the wild fruit was already ripening in the forests, to the bleak and barren solitudes of Ossetia, where I had to plough my way through ten miles of waist-deep snow.

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CHAPTER XXIII CLIMBING INTO WINTER

CHAPTER XXIII CLIMBING INTO WINTER

THE Khvamli Table Mountain seems to stand as a fort between the north and the south, and it is an extraordinary sight. Its uppermost two thousand feet are naked of verdure. The grey cliff, a mile long, rises sheer from the crests of a green forest and extends in a regular battlemented array, which suggests a great city wall. On one side of that mountain I found summer, and on the other winter. It was an extraordinary experience to climb out of an almost tropical summer into a land where the tree

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CHAPTER XXIV A NIGHT IN A KOUTAN

CHAPTER XXIV A NIGHT IN A KOUTAN

CHEKAI and his companion shepherds living in the koutan were clad in rags that were extremely dirty, their faces red, unshaven and wild, and their feet and legs bare, except of dirt. They were extremely apologetic. “You are clean,” said Gudaev, “but God has given us to work in filth, as you see, but we are men and Christian Ossetines.” I put them at their ease with a smile and went to inspect the koutan. It was an extensive dwelling, for the most part dug out of the mountain side. The walls were

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CHAPTER XXV OVER MAMISON

CHAPTER XXV OVER MAMISON

I FOLLOWED my guide Chekai over the mountain marsh, where hundreds of bright yellow water-lilies were in blossom. The sun had just risen, the clouds were very white, and the clear sky was lambent greenish blue. “It’s going to be fine,” said the shepherd. “You’ll get across safely. In an hour you will come to the Southern Shelter, a white house; you can go in there and rest, and one of the soldiers will show you the way on. After the pass there is another house, but if it is stormy you won’t be a

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CHAPTER XXVI ARRESTED

CHAPTER XXVI ARRESTED

I HAD been tramping almost three weeks when I crossed the snow of Mamison. I was therefore full of longing for the comforts of the town and calculated that in three days I should clear the remaining hundred miles and be resting in snug quarters. I was, in fact, full of such thoughts as I reached the village of Lisri, but, as Leonid Andrief says, “Man shall never know the next step for which he raises his tender foot.” At Lisri I was arrested. The village is a straggling one, built out of grey st

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CHAPTER XXVII FIVE DAYS UNDER ARREST

CHAPTER XXVII FIVE DAYS UNDER ARREST

NEXT morning I was sent under escort to the village of Zaramag, ten miles distant. But before starting Priest Khariton said to me, “I see that you have some of our copatchka in your satchel; permit me to give it to our dog, my wife will give you something fit to eat.” And the kind woman filled my bag with scones and cake and eggs. I was sent in charge of a very old man to the Ataman of Zaramag. I might easily have escaped, but it seemed more interesting to remain a prisoner. Outside Lisri he sho

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CHAPTER XXVIII MR ADAM

CHAPTER XXVIII MR ADAM

TRAMPS often bring blessings to men. They are very brotherly; they have given up the causes of quarrels. Perhaps sometimes they are a little divine. God’s grace comes down upon them. Certainly one day I met a noble tramp, an Eden tramp. He came upon me at dawn with a wood smile on his old face. He was one of the society of tramps; he knew all Russia, its places and peoples, and he called himself Mr Adam. Why did he adopt that name—why had he thrown away the other name? These were questions he wa

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CHAPTER XXIX THE BAPTIST CHAPEL

CHAPTER XXIX THE BAPTIST CHAPEL

I HAVE continually come across Protestants in Russia. They are undoubtedly increasing in numbers very rapidly. Several times when I was out in the mountains I came across proselytising Baptists and Molokans. The Molokan is a sect of Protestant exclusively Russian, I think. They differ from orthodox peasants by their ethics. They hold it a sin to smoke or to drink, and they do not recognise the Ikons. Even in Lisitchansk there had been a Baptist family, and in Moscow I had found Lutherans. M. Sto

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CHAPTER XXX THE WOMAN WHO SAW GOD

CHAPTER XXX THE WOMAN WHO SAW GOD

ONE day, when I was visiting a village on the steppes, I came upon a strange comedy very typical of Russian life. I went in to a bootmaker to get one of my boots sewn up, and I overheard the following conversation. “Marya Petrovna has seen the Anti-Christ,” says the cobbler’s wife. “No,” says Jeremy, her husband, “it is God who has looked on her. God has been very pleased with Masha.” “Yes,” rejoins his wife, “she seems very holy, but I don’t like it. Last Sunday at church she knelt so long that

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CHAPTER XXXI ALI PASHA

CHAPTER XXXI ALI PASHA

THE Persian nation, which numbers seven or eight millions of dwellers on its own soil, has many thousands scattered over the rich valleys of the Caucasus. In Tiflis, in Baku, Batum, Kutais, the Persian, clad in vermilion or crimson or slate-blue, is a familiar figure in the streets. Their wares, their inlaid guns and swords and belts, their rugs and cloaks, are the glory of all the bazaars of Trans-Caucasia. One’s eye rests with pleasure on their leisurely movements, their gentle forms and open,

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CHAPTER XXXII THE SORROWING MAN

CHAPTER XXXII THE SORROWING MAN

A WOMAN in Vladikavkaz, being told she could not live long, grew so much in love with the idea of death that she ordered her coffin in advance, and lay in it in her bedroom and had a mock funeral, just to see what it felt like. That was an incident rather typical of the life of the intelligentia of the place. There are many nerveless, sad, despairing people there, people with no apparent means of happiness, people of morbid imagination and a will to be unhappy. All around them Nature has outdone

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CHAPTER XXXIII THE CUCUMBER FAIR

CHAPTER XXXIII THE CUCUMBER FAIR

THE cost of living in the Caucasus is one-half of what it is in the most thriving agricultural district in Great Britain. This is because Russia is a self-supporting empire; it does not depend on other countries for its food supply. I think the comparative economic positions of England and Russia are inadequately known. In England the land has been sacrificed to manufactures; by adopting Free Trade it made a bargain with other countries in these terms—that it would manufacture iron goods and clo

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1. Bareback to Kobi

1. Bareback to Kobi

I HAD given Nicholas an address, Poste Restante, Mleti, and as Mleti is in the province of Tiflis, on the other side of the mountains, it took several days’ tramping to get there. I set off one August morning. The following are pages from my diary: I am sitting on the stone wall of a bridge and am spread to the sun. Last night I slept on a ledge of red porphyry rock beside some moss and grasses; the dew was very heavy and I felt cold. I don’t think I slept much, but I feel pretty fit at this mom

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2. Driving a Cart to Gudaour.

2. Driving a Cart to Gudaour.

I have been feeling very saddle-sore, but to-day my pains are too many and too various to describe. I came over the pass on a cart this day, and was so jolted that I felt in need of internal refitting. I had been lying by the roadside at Kobi drinking in the sunshine; it was perfectly blissful. I was determined not to walk to Gudaour; it didn’t matter if I did spend a day in perfect idleness. But at noon I was aware of a vehicle crawling towards me up the road, and I thought I would ask a place

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3. Mleti.

3. Mleti.

I slept under a rock last night. A large boulder had fallen on three other rocks and made a little cavern. One had to let oneself in very gingerly, for the opening was so small. It felt like sliding into a letter-box to sleep. But the bottom was soft sand and the place was secure from men and from rain. I was soaked through; my blanket weighed at least a hundred-weight with the water that was in it. But I slept. This morning I have been drying myself. My blanket is open wide to the sun and is st

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The Horizon

The Horizon

A youth steps forward on the road and a horizon goes forward. Sometimes slowly the horizon moves, sometimes in leaps and bounds. Slowly while mountains are approached, or when cities and markets crowd the skies to heaven, but suddenly and instantaneously when summits are achieved or when the outskirts dust of town or fair is passed. One day, at a highest point on that road of his, a view will be disclosed and lie before him—the furthest and most magical glance into the Future. Away, away in the

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HOW TO GET ABOUT A Chapter for Prospective Tourists

HOW TO GET ABOUT A Chapter for Prospective Tourists

HERE seems to me to be every reason why Englishmen should visit the Caucasus and see what it is like for themselves. There is no likelihood of the place being overrun, or of ordinary pleasure-seekers invading it. The Caucasus is a preserved Alps. I propose to write a few words on the facilities for seeing the country in the hope that they may be of use to some who think of touring there. The fare from London to Vladikavkaz is: Return tickets are available for sixty days. The tickets cannot be ta

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