A vagabond in the Caucasus

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 ther...

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...

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 st...

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...

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...

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 con...

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...

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...

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 ou...

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...

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 Ho...

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...

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 prosel...

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...

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 tab...

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...

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 i...

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 math...

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, w...

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 e...

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, Ba...

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, childr...

A waterproof sleeping-sack, A camel-hair blanket, A pair of Georgian boots, A flannel bashleek—a sort of hood to protect the head from cold, Two suits of clothes—one of flannel,...

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 r...

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...

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 shoul...

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...

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 cle...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 trave...

dirty, fearful. The dreadful, implacable figure in grey stood far in the darkest corner, and near him, on a bench, sat Man breathing out his last. The uncle astonished me, and f...