CHAPTER XI

DAGHESTAN, AND ITS ANCIENT PEOPLES

Daghestan is a province of Russia which lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and for 300 miles or more along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. It is the tip end of Europe. The Caucasus range is the boundary between the two continents, and beyond it is the hinterland. It is the wall of separation between the Christian and the Mohammedan worlds. Daghestan is also the limit of the region of natural moisture. It is a well-watered country, with hundreds of rivers and creeks, which rise in the snow-clad mountains and flow into the Caspian. Beyond Daghestan it is necessary to irrigate the soil by artificial means to raise any kind of crops. West of Daghestan are forests, fields of clover and grain, and pastures that are always green. East of its boundaries lies a desert which stretches for thousands of miles across the parched areas of Asia. There is no green thing of natural growth until the borders of China are reached.

Daghestan has always been the prey of rival powers. It has been plundered and ravaged in turn by all the Asiatic hordes. Its soil has been fertilized by the blood of Persians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Mongols, Tartars, Turks. The “Golden Horde” swept over it once and again in the great tidal wave of war that lit up the two continents during the Middle Ages. It has been a battle-ground for twenty centuries, and the war-chargers of fifty armies have fattened upon its pastures.

The most important river in Daghestan is the Terek, which is fed by a glacier on the slopes of that mystic mountain called Kasbek--16,546 feet in height--to which Prometheus was chained. None of the rivers in Daghestan are navigable, but an almost incredible amount of water power is going to waste for the lack of mechanical interest and ingenuity. The inhabitants are farmers and herdsmen; they plow their fields and reap their harvests and follow their flocks and herds with skill and diligence, but a Tartar never learns a trade. Agriculture is too profitable and permits too much leisure for enjoyment, to be exchanged for any other occupation by those pleasure-loving people. They work on their farms and in their orchards from the first of May to the first of September. During that period the custom of centuries forbids festivities, but after the crops are in, and the cattle and sheep have been brought down from the mountains into the plains, the Tartar population give themselves up to their native diversions for the rest of the year. They are a hospitable people, and whoever breaks bread or eats salt with them is protected and defended with their lives. A Tartar farmhouse is a hotel for travellers--a free house of call for the homeless. No hungry man was ever sent from a Tartar threshold, the exercise of hospitality being the most important article in their creed.

The women spend their lives at the looms and work up the wool from the flocks into marketable products--rugs, saddle-bags, blankets, and other coarse fabrics, which are admired for their design and finish. The rugs of Daghestan are found on the floors of every city in the world, and, while they do not compare with those from Persia or Bokhara and are graded as medium in value, they last forever. The people were formerly all Mohammedans, and all the Tartars are still--but the shifting tides of humanity have left adherents of all creeds, and a majority of the present inhabitants profess the faith of the orthodox Greek church and are under the spiritual jurisdiction of the patriarch at St. Petersburg.

There is a railway from Baku to Moscow, and through sleeping cars. The track hugs the shore of the Caspian Sea for more than a hundred miles, passing first through a flat, desolate desert, broken by many rocks of slate and mounds of sun-burned clay. But after several streams are crossed, mountains appear in the distance and the soil, as well as the climate, improves. The dryness of the desert is moistened by damp breezes that blow down from the Caucasus and bring life to the earth. It was a relief to see green meadows and pastures and verdure-covered hills, after our long sojourn among the barren wastes of Turkestan. The meadows were gay in their summer raiment. Wild flowers were fashionable that year, and the steppes of Daghestan were strewn with them, an almost infinite variety of colours.

The topography of the steppes of Daghestan resembles the steppes of North Dakota after harvest time. The surface of the earth undulates in great waves and ridges. Americans would call it a rolling prairie. The slopes that face the sun are yellow with the stubble of the grain that has been harvested. Vast herds of cattle and sheep are grazing on the northern slopes of the hills, and the absence of fences makes necessary the employment of shepherds, who wear long, greasy looking coats of sheepskin, with the wool inside. Their heads are covered with big shakos that look very heavy and very hot.

At night the sheep are herded in folds made of braided saplings which are planted and grown for that express purpose. A grove of elms or hickory or other flexible saplings can be planted at a slight expense, and when they are two or three years old they can be cut and braided like basket work. The herdsmen make litters eight or ten feet long and four or five feet wide, which, when supported by light posts, make a strong and “hog-tight” fence. Every ranchman has one, and moves it from pasture to pasture, following his flocks, and turns the sheep and lambs into this movable corral every night.

The men we saw around the railway stations are Tartars, whose love of society and excitement brings upon them the contempt of the phlegmatic Germans and Russians, who scorn such diversions. Their love of dress also excites the derision of their neighbours. They cling to the ancient Georgian costume and will not give it up. They wear the kalak--a long coat with a plaited skirt--and a hood of white woolen cloth, called a kabula, over their heads, with a long end and tassels hanging down their back. It is much more graceful than the fez but is not so dignified as the turban.

The Russian government is diverting immigrants to that section of the Caucasus from other parts of the empire. Although one of the oldest communities in the universe, it is still thinly settled. The revolution of the land-hungry peasants of European Russia in 1905 was followed by legislation in the duma similar to that of the British Parliament concerning Ireland, and the great estates are being purchased by the government, broken up into small farms and sold to the peasants on long time at a low rate of interest. This movement was hastened and the land owners were persuaded to sell by arguments similar to those used by the tenantry in Ireland. The landlords who still refuse to yield are having a hard time of it. Their barns are set on fire, their cattle are mutilated, their wheat fields are burned, and various other penalties are imposed upon them. There is now a law authorizing the compulsory expropriation of large estates, and the lands belonging to the crown and the church are being divided and disposed of slowly among peasant farmers imported from the more densely populated sections of central Russia.

There are many sturdy Germans there, descendants of immigrants who were induced to go into the Caucasus by Catherine the Great one hundred and twenty-five years ago. She gave them large grants of land and relieved them from taxation and military service, as an inducement to develop the natural wealth of her empire. By minding their own business they have managed to get along with the fiery-hearted and hot-tempered Tartars. The Germans make the best farmers and are the richest portion of the population. Armenians, Persians, and Greeks are the tradesmen and the same races furnish the mechanics and labourers. Representatives of all the races of central Asia are to be found there, and many of European stock, Latins and Greeks, Huns, Iberians, and Italians, because when the tidal waves of humanity, to which I have already referred, receded, a good deal of driftwood was always left behind.

Daghestan has been known to history for three thousand years. Josephus tells us of a race called the Alans, who dwelt upon the coast of the Caspian Sea and along the northern slopes of the Caucasus, whence, passing through “Iron Gates,” they fell upon the Medes and nearly exterminated them. They invaded Armenia, eight hundred or nine hundred years before Christ, and laid everything waste behind them. They crossed over into Persia and made themselves at home in that country until they were driven out by Cyrus the Great. The “Iron Gates,” so called, were a part of a great wall, like that of the Chinese, which, in prehistoric times, extended from the present city of Derbent on the shore of the Caspian Sea, to the mountain of Koushan-Dagh near the western limits of Daghestan. This wall is believed by several authorities to have been built a thousand years before the Christian era during the reign of a monarch called Nashrevan the Just, for the protection of his people, who lived north of the Caucasus, against the wild tribes of Asia. It was eighteen or twenty feet high and so thick that a squadron of cavalry could gallop along its top. Remnants are still preserved and the ruins of forty-three castles along its foundation have been counted between the mountains and the sea. There was only one passage, through the “Iron Gates” which remained in perfect preservation until the Middle Ages.

Arabian writers in the early part of the Christian era refer to it frequently as a gigantic work, and describe fortifications that were filled with soldiers, and impregnable to attack. The total length of the wall was two hundred and sixty-six miles so that the castles must have been about six miles apart. You will remember that the Romans built a similar wall across the north of England between Carlisle and Newcastle to keep the Highlanders out of Briton, and other defences of the kind have been known elsewhere. Oriental writers say that the hour of prayer used to be communicated along this wall by the sentinels five times a day.

Other writers attribute the construction of the wall and the gate to Iskander, or Alexander the Great, who conquered this country and took possession of it. It was a very important part of his empire, and from the mountains of Daghestan he drew the bravest and most efficient horsemen in his armies. He called the people Khozars, and they were pagans.

Professor A. V. Williams Jackson, of the chair of archæology of Columbia University, New York, has been engaged for several years in the fascinating and important task of locating the trail traversed by Alexander the Great in his conquest of the world between 334 and 323 B.C. He has been able to identify with reasonable certainty nearly all of the stages made by the great Macedonian in his pursuit of Darius III, the last of the Achæmenian kings, the places at which he stopped during his march, and the battle-fields upon which he fought. He is especially gratified that he has been able to fix with certainty the location of the famous “Caspian Gates” beyond the city of Rai, which is ancient Rappa, where the mother of Zoroaster, the founder of the fire worshippers, was born, between five hundred and four hundred years before Christ.

Philip of Macedonia, as you will remember, fell by the hand of an assassin in the midst of his preparations for an invasion of the Persian empire in the year 336 B.C., and was succeeded by his son, Alexander, then a mere boy, twenty years old. He had not been on the throne a year, notwithstanding his youth, before he was recognized as a greater warrior and a more powerful sovereign than his father and commanded the universal awe and admiration of the Greeks. At the head of an army of forty thousand cavalry, infantry, and archers, he started eastward, on his world-conquering campaign, and fought his first great battle, B.C. 334, in Asia Minor. He crossed the Taurus Mountains and subdued Mesopotamia. Thence he marched southward and captured Damascus; besieged Tyre successfully, passed through Jerusalem, paused to overthrow the fortress at Gaza, conquered Egypt, founded the city of Alexandria, which he called by his own name, and there made his first claim to divinity. Having added all this territory to his empire, he returned to Mesopotamia and occupied, one after the other, the capitals of Assyria, Persia, and Media, which were full of wealth and splendour. The actual amount of gold and silver seized by him in these capitals is estimated at one hundred and fifty million dollars and the loot made every soldier in his army rich.

Darius the Great fled before him, and Alexander’s pursuit from Ecbatana, the capital of Media, through the Parthian passes, is considered one of the most remarkable of all military campaigns. He overtook the flying Persian as the latter was dying of wounds dealt him by a traitor, Bessus, his satrap in Bacoria, in what is now called Turkestan. Bessus placed the wounded monarch in a covered chariot and set out to meet Alexander. But Darius refused to follow a band of traitors, whereupon the conspirators, roused to fury, transfixed him with their javelins and left him weltering in his blood. Alexander, who came up only a few moments after Darius had expired, ordered the body to be embalmed and buried with the honours of an emperor. He captured and executed Bessus, the regicide, and married the daughter of Darius, who had no other heir. Thus he assumed, so far as possible, the character of Darius’s legitimate successor and proclaimed himself emperor of the East.

He then returned westward to subdue the Caucasus, and marched northward along the western shore of the Caspian Sea to what was then considered the limits of the world.

Professor Jackson believes that he then built the wall from the shores of the Caspian to the crags of the Caucasus Mountains, like the great wall of China, to hold back the wild tribes of Asia that roamed upon the northern steppes, and the iron gates near the present city of Derbent.

After reducing the Caucasus, Alexander invaded the Trans-Caspian country and marched east and south through Afghanistan, where he founded a city said to be the modern Kandahar. Then he turned northward across the Hindu-Kush Mountains and founded another colony, at what is now Kabul. Then he kept on northward to Bokhara and Samarkand, where he spent a year or more and built a splendid city which he called Marakanda.

From there he set out to conquer India and conquered the desert on the way. In the spring of the year 323 B.C. he returned to Babylon, where he was met by embassies from all the rulers of the civilized world. Fresh troops had arrived from Greece for the campaign against India and the expedition was on the point of starting when Alexander was seized with fever and died in June, 323 B.C., at the age of thirty-two years.

The scarcity of maps in ancient times and the frequent changes in nomenclature in the countries of the East has caused interminable controversies as to the route of the great Macedonian, and the identity of many of the places which are associated with his achievements. Dr. Jackson, who has devoted his life to the study of Persian and Indian history, undertook to set things straight some years ago and has made several visits to Asia for that purpose. He is perhaps the highest authority in America on Persian affairs and has recently published a book of absorbing interest called “Persia, Past and Present.” A second book will treat of the Trans-Caspian country and other scenes of the achievements of Alexander in that part of the world.

Dr. Jackson tells me that he feels confident that he has established the fact that Alexander built the wall between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. He has been convinced of this by certain inscriptions upon tablets attached to the wall, which attribute its creation to the first world conqueror. And they confirm a belief which is always cherished. But in his investigations in Baku, the Caspian oil district, he met with a surprise from which it is difficult to recover, concerning the age of the ruins of a temple of the fire worshippers a few miles from that city. It is supposed to have been erected in very ancient times by pilgrims who were attracted to the banks of the Caspian because of the naphtha springs that were burning along its western coast. It is one of the most striking and interesting of all the ruins in that country. Later comers supposed that these fires were natural and were worshipped from the earliest times. They built an imposing temple around them and with great ingenuity conducted the gas through pipes of cane sheathed with clay to the tops of towers erected over the gates and at the corners of the enclosure. These fires were kept up by Parsees from Bombay, descendants of the ancient fire worshippers of Persia, until early in the ’80s, when the owners of a concession from the Russian government to develop the oil deposit seized the place and built a refinery.

Dr. Jackson says: “I always supposed that this fire temple was built by Zoroaster or some of his followers, and was very much shocked when I discovered that it is a modern institution; although I still cling to the belief that it may have been a place of worship for the Persian fire worshippers from the earliest times.

“In a careful examination of the ruins of the temple at Surakhany, near Baku, I found seventeen inscriptions, some of them in excellent condition, and was able to make photographs of them all. Six of them are on the outside and fifteen on the inside of the walls, and they are all dated in the eighteenth century A.D., instead of the sixth or eighth century B.C., as I have always supposed. There is no question about it. The temple is not only modern, but it was built by Hindoo fire worshippers--Brahmins from the Punjab--survivors of the old Vedic worship. They were probably Hindoo merchants at Baku and were reminded of the faith and the forms of worship of their ancestors by finding these flaming springs. Furthermore, some of the inscriptions correspond very closely with those I have seen at Kanzra, in northern India.

“It has always been a mystery why there is no mention of this temple in ancient Greek and Roman accounts of the Caucasus and the Caspian country, which have frequent references to the burning springs of naphtha. Nor do any of the early Mohammedan writers mention the temple. The first we hear of it is about the beginning of the eighteenth century in a narrative of a London merchant named Hanmay, who went over to that country on a trading expedition and wrote a book about the Caspian Sea and the surrounding country. He describes the temple and the fires and gives some interesting information concerning both. Gibbon in his history describes the temple and says it was destroyed by Heraclius, the Christian emperor of Byzantium, in the seventh century, but that is not true.

“I have been able to locate most of the places identified with the campaigns of Alexander of Macedonia,” continued Professor Jackson, “and it has been an exceedingly interesting task.

“I have been able to trace back the history of the city of Derbent for several hundred years before Christ. Notwithstanding its location on the shores of the Caspian Sea, so far from what we generally assumed to have been the scenes of human activity at that period, it has had an important and busy place in history, and is frequently referred to by writers in ancient days. For example, Tacitus tells us that Alexander quartered his invalid soldiers there in 330 B.C.

“I have not been able to decipher the inscriptions upon the tablets I found in the temple of the fire worshippers at Surakhany. I cannot read the language in which they are written, and I don’t know anything about them, but one of these days we hope to make them clear.”

Señor Don Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, “chamberlain of the most high and puissant Lord Don Henry, third of that name, King of Castile and Leon,” who visited the court of the great Tamerlane, the emperor of Asia, at Samarkand as an ambassador in 1403, refers to the iron gates in the wall at Derbent. He speaks also of others in the mountains which separate China and Turkestan, where, he says: “There is a pass leading up by a ravine which looks as if it had been artificially cut, and the hills rise to a great height on either side, and the pass is smooth and very deep. In the centre of the pass there is a village, and the mountain rises to a great height behind. This pass is called ‘the gates of iron,’ and in all the mountain range there is no other pass, so that it guards the land of Samarkand in the direction of India. These ‘gates of iron’ produce a large revenue to the lord Timour Beg, for all merchants who come from India pass this way.

“Timour Beg is also lord of the other ‘gates of iron,’ which are near Derbent, leading to the province of Tartary, in the city of Caffa, which are also in very lofty mountains, between Tartary and the land of Derbent, facing the Sea of Bakou, and the people of Tartary are obliged to use that pass when they go to Persia. The distance from the ‘gates of iron’ at Derbent to those in the land of Samarkand is fifteen hundred leagues.

“Say if a great lord, who is master of these ‘gates of iron,’ and of all the land that is between them, such as Timour Beg, is not a mighty prince! Derbent is a very large city, with a large territory. They call the ‘gates of iron’ by the names of Derbent and Termit. At this house they made the ambassadors a present of a horse, and the horses of this country are much praised for their great spirit. These mountains of the ‘gates of iron’ are without woods, and in former times they say that there were gates covered with iron placed across the pass, so that no one could pass without an order.”

Daghestan was the most costly province ever added to the Russian Empire. It cost thirty-five years of war and the sacrifice of 200,000 soldiers to subdue the fierce mountain warriors, the Lesghians, the Teherkess and the other tribes, who were the fiercest fighters in Europe, and are said to be the descendants of the Hittites of the Old Testament. They were pagans until Mohammed appeared. Since then they have been fanatical in their adherence to Islam. They were taught the art of war by the savage Scythians in prehistoric times, and the aboriginal tribes were amalgamated in the Middle Ages with the Golden Horde of Kirghiz from the desert of Khiva, which swept through eastern Europe like a cyclone. Many of those desert warriors settled here, and from them descended the hardy, fearless, uncompromising race who continued to fight for their independence long after Georgia and the Circassians had acknowledged the sovereignty of the czar. Fifty years ago Daghestan was called “the graveyard of the Russian army.”

Through the gorges of the Caucasus for more than a generation the ablest generals in Russian history, including three czars--Nicholas, the iron czar, and the Alexanders I and II--fought in vain to subdue those fearless people, who, with one man to their forty, defeated them often in open fights as well as in ambush among the impregnable fortresses of nature. Not until the resources of the country were exhausted and nearly all the towns and cities were laid waste and the population of fighting men was almost exterminated did they yield. Finally, when further resistance was impossible, Prince Schamyl, prophet, priest, astrologer, and necromancer, the hereditary sultan of those Tartar tribes, laid his gory scimitar at the feet of General Baryantinsky and took an oath of allegiance to Alexander II. The lord of the Caucasus, the lion of Daghestan, as the old warrior was called, was permitted to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he died of a broken heart beside the tomb of the Prophet and was buried in the sacred city. After the surrender his warriors settled down on farms and ranches and have been blessed with great prosperity, although they are restless of disposition and have made an occasional display of temper and dissatisfaction that has called for discipline.

The men of Daghestan are irrepressible fighters. They inherited their warlike habits, and are never so happy and never so contented as when they are engaged in a desperate campaign. During the war of 1877–8 between Turkey and Russia many of the more fanatical Mohammedans crossed over into Asia Minor and joined the army of the sultan because they recognized him as the Padishah of Islam and the lineal successor of the Prophet. But after peace was arranged most of them came back to their homes, and Gen. Loris Melikoff, one of the few Armenians who have risen to military distinction and received honours in the Russian service, became their governor.

Melikoff is a remarkable man. He conducted the campaign against Turkey east of the Black Sea under the nominal supervision of the Grand Duke Michael, brother of the czar, was made an aide-de-camp to the emperor, and at nine and twenty was commander-in-chief of the Caucasus. As a rule, Armenians do not make good soldiers. They are merchants instead of military men, but Melikoff ranks as one of the most brilliant and successful commanders of the Russian army.

The first and only important city on the railroad between Baku and Vladikavkas is Derbent, a market for the produce of a large area of well cultivated fields, for the wool of a thousand flocks, and the hides of a thousand herds. A good deal of timber from the forests of the Caucasus is shipped across the Caspian from there also and goes to Turkestan. Most of the freight is loaded upon barges, towed over to Astrakhan, and thence up the Volga River to Moscow, Kavan, and other manufacturing centres.

Derbent is one of the most ancient cities in Europe. It is situated on the western coast of the Caspian, and has about forty thousand inhabitants, who are a mixture of all bloods and races and clans. It is supposed to have been founded in prehistoric times by a race known as the Aylans, from which the German people sprang. It was besieged by Alexander of Macedon, by Cyrus the Great, emperor of the Medes and Persians. All of the great warriors of ancient history have sat before its walls, recognizing the strategic value of its position and the importance of placing a shield before the approaches to Persia, Armenia, and Kurdistan, which have been the prey of every ambitious empire-builder since the time of Christ.

Another city of lesser importance is Petrosky, comparatively modern, without much history, but, nevertheless, a busy shipping port for grain. The small steamers that ply the Caspian are continually going in and coming out as they find their way between Petrosky and the other Caspian ports. Much grain is grown upon the steppes of Daghestan, and the larger part of it is transported to Astrakhan, to be ground into flour to feed the people of Moscow and Petersburg. At Astrakhan, the mouth of the Volga, all freight brought by steamer is transferred to barges, which ply that great river far to the northward.

When the train leaves Petrosky it starts directly westward toward the mountains, and is welcomed by a row of glorious peaks which rise snow-clad toward the heavens. The highest peak in the southern part of the range is called Bazar-Duez, and measures 14,723 feet; the next highest are Shah-Dagh, 13,951 feet; Kourousch, 13,750 feet; Doulty-Dagh, 13,425 feet; Kontana-Dagh, 11,425 feet; Goudour-Dagh, 11,075 feet; and a dozen more of ten thousand feet and less. They are full of romance as well as history. Daghestan has been the scene of very important events, but during the last four or five centuries, since America was discovered and the development of European civilization has required so much attention, it has been overlooked.

The original of the tragedy of Mazeppa, Byron’s hero, was Ivan Stephanovich, the son of a Tcherkess prince, and was born in 1644. While a page at the court of one of the petty principalities of Russia, a nobleman discovered that his wife was in love with the handsome young mountaineer, and with the cruelty characteristic of the Tartar race, caused the boy to be stripped naked and bound upon the back of a wild horse, which was turned loose upon the steppes. After days of wandering without food Ivan was carried unconscious into a Cossack camp and after a time became secretary to the hetman or chief. His influence grew until, in 1687, he was elected chieftain. He won the admiration of Peter the Great, who bestowed upon him the title of Prince of the Ukrain, but a few years after, when Peter revoked some of the ancient privileges and liberties of the Cossacks, he organized a rebellion against his patron. Before he had a chance to make a public demonstration the conspiracy was discovered, and Mazeppa fled for protection to the court of Charles XII of Sweden. Being unable to capture the rebel, Peter the Great ordered his effigy to be hanged upon a gallows before the palace, and his capital, Baturin, was sacked and burned and razed to the ground. Mazeppa’s romantic career furnished the plot for several novels and dramatic works in addition to Byron’s poem, and suggested a theme for several famous paintings.

There seems to be something in the atmosphere of the Caucasus to addle religious ideas and inspire queer interpretations of the Bible. A majority of the population were formerly Mohammedans, but large numbers have been converted to the Russian church, although an active propaganda is not permitted by the government. There are about 500,000 Protestants from Wurtemberg and other German states, who were induced to settle there during the reign of Catherine II. They hold fast to their faith, and have built a Lutheran church in almost every town, where the herr pastor supplements his scanty salary by farming or fruit growing.

One of the queerest sects of dissenters, which has sloughed off the orthodox Greek organization, is called “Sgrannyky,” which means “wanderers.” They have no homes nor houses of worship; no priests or organizations. Their preachers are elected from among the most intelligent members of the community, who preach, baptize, perform funeral obsequies, expound the Scriptures to inquirers, and often teach in the parochial schools.

The “wanderers” claim to be the only true and literal followers of Christ. They have “given up everything,” as He commanded. They denounce the Russian Church for having corrupted the simplicity of the original faith. They condemn the splendid ritual and ostentatious forms of worship in temples which cost millions of rubles for unnecessary architecture and ornaments and vestments, which should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor.

The “wanderers” hold their services in the open air, like the Druids, and the “Bush-Baptists” of our own Southern states, because Christ never preached under a roof or in a temple made with human hands. They abstain from the exercise of the privileges and rights of citizenship; they refuse to pay taxes because a portion of the revenue of the Russian government is devoted to the support of the church; they avoid being counted in the census, because they do not acknowledge the sovereignty of the czar; and refuse to sign or accept written contracts or agreements of any kind, because they regard writing as an invention of the devil.

Another queer sect are called Hlistys or “People of God,” who practice a life of absolute chastity, mutilate their bodies, inflict torture upon themselves, refuse to accept any compensation but food for their labour, renounce all luxuries and comforts, and believe that by so doing they purify their spirits and become perfect in holiness.

Another and similar sect style themselves the Stundists, or “Brethren in Friendship with God.” They adhere to a strict interpretation of the Bible, live simple lives, renounce wealth, give all they have to the poor, condemn the institutions and ceremonies of the Russian church, and are intolerant toward people who do not agree with them.

The “Old Believers,” or Douhobortsy sect, many of whom have emigrated to Canada, are quite numerous down there, and are among the most prosperous and successful of the farmers. They were banished from northern Russia to the Caucasus during the reign of Alexander I, and forcibly deported by the government at the instigation of the holy synod. They are, however, honest, industrious, law-abiding farmers, who educate their children with great care, practise all the virtues we commend, and are at fault only in some odd practices and queer manifestations of spirituality which are not conventional.

We awakened in the morning in the midst of a wide prairie which reminded us more than ever of North Dakota, and we saw what looked like American reapers in the fields and heard their music above the noise of the train. Much of the harvest work was being done by women, which isn’t the Dakota way, but the men are in the army and somebody must reap the grain. Another thing equally unlike North Dakota is that the conductor and porter of the train wear big revolvers at their belts, one on either side, which look like business, and suspended from their belts behind them are round leather scabbards, like cylinders, into which something is thrust that looks like a policeman’s club. We discovered afterward that they are signal flags, tightly rolled and always within reach.

The train turned westward later in the day to run for many miles along the foot of the mountains, and at a handsome stone station that might easily be mistaken for an armoury, we changed to a branch line for the city of Vladikavkas and the famous Dariel Pass, one of the only two pathways through the Caucasus.

Vladikavkas is a typical Russian city, founded in 1775 by Prince Potemkin by direction of Catherine the Great, upon the site of a native village called Kapoukaya, which means “the gate of the gorge.” At that time it was of considerable importance to the Russians as a post of defence against the rebellious mountain tribes, and it has grown into a busy, bustling, commercial city, with a rich agricultural territory to support it, and is a depot of military supplies for the entire Caucasus. The name is spelled several ways--Valdicaucasus, Viadicaukus, and otherwise, according to the nationality of the speller--but each of the versions has the same meaning, and that is “the master of the Caucasus,” for its garrisons command and protect the Dariel Pass and the military road which was built through its gorges to Tiflis by the Russians half a century ago. Considered from a military standpoint, there is no more important highway in the world, and when the next war between Russia and Turkey occurs within the next ten years, a continual procession of troops and wagons loaded with ammunition and military supplies will be passing down to Armenia and Asia Minor through its narrow defiles.

Vladikavkas has fine, broad streets, which, however, are either very dusty or very muddy at all times. They are laid out at right angles and planted with poplars; and the main street, which is a hundred and sixty feet wide, has a promenade in the centre for the entire distance, shaded by two rows of trees on both sides and watered by dashing streams that flow through the gutters. Booths for the sale of tea and beer, catch-penny shows, seats for the weary, band stands and kiosks occur at frequent intervals, and in the long twilight of the summer evenings all the people of the town come out to promenade up and down this pleasant way, to listen to the military bands, to greet each other and gossip, and to learn what is going on in their little world.

An electric car line reaches every corner of the city, which is a great convenience because, like all provincial towns in Russia, Vladikavkas covers an enormous area. The houses are chiefly of a single story, built of stone around a courtyard, and occupy large spaces. The shops are filled with attractive stocks of merchandise, and there are several large warehouses in which all kinds of agricultural machinery is offered for sale. Nearly all of it comes from the United States.

The official residence of the governor-general, a city hall of fantastic Oriental architecture, and a Russian cathedral with five green domes, are the most conspicuous buildings except the barracks and military hospital. Just outside of the city is an immense military school, accommodating five hundred cadets, and a hospital for sick soldiers, almost as large. Nearly every other man you meet on the street wears a military uniform, and the dining-room at the hotel looks like an officers’ mess at headquarters, for most of the tables are occupied by colonels and generals and favoured gentlemen of the staff. These signs illustrate the importance of Vladikavkas to the Russian government, and, although the czar is on friendly terms with everybody just at present, his preparations for war do not seem to be suspended. In addition to commanding the approaches to the Dariel Pass, Vladikavkas is also the northern terminus of the Manisson Pass, the only other highway over the Caucasus, and is connected with the ancient city of Kutias over what is known as the Ossetian Road. The distance is longer and the grades are heavier than those of the Dariel Pass, but it is the shortest route to Batoum and the Black Sea, and for that reason is of the greatest importance.

Both of these passes are heavily fortified and numerous monuments have been erected along the way to mark spots of historic importance and to inspire the army with a heroic and patriotic feeling. One of these monuments is in honour of a private soldier.

In 1840, during an uprising of the Circassians, the Mihailovosky fort, about half way through the pass, was garrisoned by a detachment of the Seventy-seventh regiment of Russian infantry, under command of Captain Liko. Being besieged by the rebels and short of provisions and ammunition, he decided to blow up the place at the next assault. The remaining powder was converted into a mine and placed under the only approach to the fort, and a private named Arhippe Ossipoff volunteered to apply the match. When the besieging force had broken down the gates and were surging through the archway, Ossipoff fired the mine. Nearly every man in the Russian garrison and all of the enemy perished, and the few survivors crawled down the road to tell the news.

When he heard the story the emperor issued a general order commanding that the name of Arhippe Ossipoff should remain forever upon the muster roll of the Seventy-seventh regiment. Every morning at dress parade it is called with the rest, when the first sergeant replies:

“Arhippe Ossipoff died for his country and for the glory of Russia.”