Novels, Tales, Journeys полностью

The Circassians hate us. We have forced them out of their open grazing lands; their auls have been devastated, whole tribes have been wiped out. They withdraw further and further into the mountains and from there carry out their raids. The friendship of the peaceful Circassians20 is unreliable; they are always ready to help their violent fellow tribesmen. The spirit of their wild chivalry has noticeably declined. They rarely attack an equal number of Cossacks, never the foot soldiers, and they run away at the sight of a cannon. But they never miss a chance to attack a weaker troop or a defenseless man. The country roundabout is full of rumors of their villainies. There is almost no way to subdue them, so long as they are not disarmed, as the Crimean Tatars were, which is very hard to accomplish on account of the hereditary feuds and blood vengeance that reign among them. Dagger and saber are parts of their body, and a baby begins to wield them sooner than he can prattle. Among them killing is a simple body movement. They keep prisoners in hope of ransom, but they treat them with terrible inhumanity, force them to work beyond their strength, feed them raw dough, beat them whenever they like, and have them guarded by their young boys, who at one word have the right to cut them up with their children’s sabers. A peaceful Circassian who had shot at a soldier was recently captured. He justified it by the fact that his rifle had stayed loaded for too long. What to do with such people? It is to be hoped, however, that if we acquire the region east of the Black Sea, cutting the Circassians off from their trade with Turkey, that will force them to become friendlier to us. The influence of luxury could contribute to their taming: the samovar would be an important innovation. There is a means that is stronger, more moral, more consistent with the enlightenment of our age: the preaching of the Gospel. The Circassians embraced the Mohammedan faith very recently. They were carried away by the active fanaticism of the apostles of the Koran, the most notable of whom was Mansur, an extraordinary man, who for a long time stirred up the Caucasus against Russian dominion, was finally seized by our forces, and died in the Solovki monastery.21 The Caucasus awaits Christian missionaries. But it is easier for our idleness to pour out dead printed letters instead of the living word and to send mute books to people who are illiterate.

We reached Vladikavkaz, the former Kapkai, the threshold of the mountains. It is surrounded by Ossetian auls. I visited one of them and found myself at a funeral. People crowded around a saklia. In the yard stood an arba hitched to two oxen. Relatives and friends of the deceased arrived from all directions and with loud weeping went into the saklia, beating their foreheads with their fists. The women stood quietly. The dead man was carried out on a burka

…like a warrior taking his rest

With his martial cloak around him.22

They placed him on the arba. One of the guests took the deceased’s rifle, blew the powder off the pan, and placed it next to the body. The oxen set out. The guests followed. The body was to be buried in the mountains, some twenty miles from the aul. Unfortunately, nobody could explain these rites to me.

The Ossetes are the poorest tribe of the peoples inhabiting the Caucasus; their women are beautiful and, one hears, very well-disposed to travelers. At the gates of the fortress I met the wife and daughter of an imprisoned Ossete. They were bringing him dinner. Both seemed calm and bold; nevertheless, at my approach they both lowered their heads and covered themselves with their tattered chadras. In the fortress I saw Circassian amanats, frisky and handsome boys. They constantly play pranks and escape from the fortress. They are kept in pitiful conditions. They go around in rags, half naked and abominably filthy. On some I saw wooden fetters. The amanats, once they are set free, probably do not miss their stay in Vladikavkaz.

The cannon left us. We went on with the foot soldiers and the Cossacks. The Caucasus took us into its sanctuary. We heard a muted noise and saw the Terek pouring out in various directions. We rode along its left bank. Its noisy waves turn the wheels of the low Ossetian mills, which look like dog kennels. The deeper we penetrated into the mountains, the narrower the gorge became. The constrained Terek throws its muddy waves with a roar over the rocks that bar its way. The gorge meanders along its course. The stone feet of the mountains are polished by its waves. I went on foot and stopped every other minute, struck by the gloomy enchantment of nature. The weather was bleak; clouds stretched heavily along the black peaks. Count Pushkin and Stjernvall, looking at the Terek, recalled Imatra and preferred “the thundering river of the North.”23 But I had nothing with which to compare the spectacle before me.