Chapter 8

The guides now come in from reconnoitring the posture of affairs on the steppe on the other side of the mountain. In accordance with their advice most probably had the expedition been originally agreed upon; for they had represented the enemy's flocks and herds as left unguarded save by the shepherds, the villages undefended except by the boors, and the posture of things generally to be such as to promise a certain victory with booty and captives. Now they come in, having taken a final survey from some wooded nook on the hill-side of the boundless steppean prospect, as from his cottage on the cliff the fisherman looks out upon the level waste of the ocean. The Terek is reported sufficiently low to be forded; for the stream which in the higher mountains pours down with headlong fury its waters, transparent save where the white and red crystals which form its bed are concealed by the foam, creeps through the steppe a sluggish, muddy current, passable with safety at certain points and certain stages of the water. In the plain beyond stands a Cossack village or stanitza, together with a small fort or krepost surrounded by mud walls, armed with a piece or two of artillery, and garrisoned by a small body of infantry. It is one of the chain of similar Cossack settlements which, called "the line" of the Caucasus, stretches from the mouth of the Kuban to that of the Terek; and as the invaders penetrate further and further into the mountains, they carry this system of Cossack colonies and fort defenses with them, so that the chain forged to bind within its thousand links the liberties of all the tribes is gradually drawn tighter and tighter.

Over against the ford, and at no great distance from it, stands a Cossack guard-post. It is constructed of four poles twenty or more feet in height, which below are fastened in the earth and support on the upper extremity a seat or lookout. To this the Cossack climbs by means of a ladder, and there he sits by day and by night watching the forest of reeds on the river banks, watching the level sweep of the steppe on either side, watching the opposite hills and mountains. Forlorn indeed would be the poor Cossack notwithstanding he has before his eyes the glory of the Circassian hills and the distant snow-summits mingling with the clouds, were it not for the bottle of schnapps by his side, and the stroking of his long moustache. For weeks and months he may watch without seeing a single Circassian. But when he does, he instantly kindles his beacon fire, and descending seizes his lance left leaning against one of the four posts, and springing upon his horse which stands fastened to another, gallops to the stanitza. In all haste the women and children fly to the fort; the soldiers drive in the swine or cattle which feed on the grass around it; the sentinels fire the cannon to give the alarm to the neighboring stanitzas; and every Cossack within sound of the signal-firing, vaulting into the saddle and putting his steed to his mettle, hastens lance in hand to drive back the enemy.

But ere he arrives, though fleet be his steed, very likely the Circassian band, having previously succeeded in reaching the river unobserved, have swept like a tempest over both fort and stanitza. An oath of fidelity which even more than any divinity awes the Circassian mind and rules it, having previously been administered on a pocket edition of the Koran to each warrior by his chief, and each one before sallying from his place of concealment in reeds, woods, or hills, having dismounted to put up with raised hands in silence a brief prayer to Allah, as well as to tighten his saddle-girths, at a given signal all spring forward like the roused lion out of his lair. Giving their horses the rein they have no need of spurs. In a moment they are across the open space which lies between their cover and the fortress, though some may have fallen from the enemy's well-aimed guns and musketry. They are at the gates; they leap the ditch; they climb the wall; they spring down into the enclosure; at the same time raising a war-cry which resembling the shrill, melancholy, and fearfully wild howl of the jackal, fills with unnatural, and even insane consternation the troops who for the first time hear it. It is now quick work, and the struggle fearful. But the agile and light-limbed mountaineers are more than a match for the heavy, slow-wilted Russians; and though in cold blood the former do not take the life of an enemy, now fury-driven they are swift to smite and never spare; while above the clash of sabres and bayonets, above the shouting and the musketry, rises the voice of the Circassian chief who leads on and deals out destruction until the last Muscovite bites the dust.

The stanitza making no resistance, the work of pillage is soon done; whereupon the troop having picked up their dead and wounded, turn their horses' heads again towards the mountains. When the Cossacks come in with their reinforcements it is too late. They are only in time to behold the stanitza in flames, the fort in ruins from the explosion of its magazines, and the victors, their cruppers piled high with goods, and women, just gaining the opposite bank, or crossing the hill-top, on the other side of which lie both safety and freedom.

Sometimes the Circassians dash through between the forts without stopping to attack them, and suffering, perhaps, somewhat from the cross-fire, gain the country beyond the line, where they find more abundant spoils and no resistance. But on their return, they are sure to encounter the Cossacks drawn up at the ford, or some other point convenient for disputing the passage to an enemy encumbered with booty. These Russian hirelings, however, the freemen of the mountains despise, and with superior horses ride them down. Only when the espionage which is maintained among all the tribes on the border--for everywhere there are souls which can be bought for gold--succeeds in procuring for their enemies information of any incursion before it takes place, is the foray rendered unsuccessful and the troop cut off.

XXIX.

RUSSIAN MODE OF WARFARE

The Russian mode of conducting the invasion of the Caucasus has been different at different times. When the Emperor Nicholas, after the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, revived the old war with Circassia in order to compel by force of arms the acknowledgment of those pretended rights of supremacy which by that treaty had been made over to him by Turkey, he supposed that his Cossacks, aided by a small force of infantry, would be sufficient to intimidate the mountaineers and to accomplish his purpose. Earlier in the century, Russia had acquired from Persia the vast provinces of the southern Caucasus, and had afterwards, partly by the consent of the tribes and partly by force, succeeded in keeping open the two great routes to these possessions, the one along the Caspian, and the other over the centre of the chain by the pass of Dariel. It remained therefore to subjugate only that portion of the Caucasus not included in the territories adjacent to these two roads, and lying the larger portion of it south of the Kuban, and the smaller south of the Terek.

Nicholas accordingly sent his proclamations into the mountains saying, "Russia has conquered France, put her sons to death, and made captives of her daughters. England will never give any aid to the Circassians, because she depends on Russia for her daily bread. There are only two powers in the universe--God in heaven, and the emperor on earth! What then do you expect? Even though the arch of heaven were to fall, there are Russians enough to hold it up on the points of their bayonets!" At the same time, while the Cossack colonies which had been planted in line along the northern banks of the Kuban and the Terek were reinforced from the hordes of their brethren on the Black Sea and the Don, the long spears of these united horsemen were strengthened by the bayonets of a few thousand infantry--the vanguard of hundreds of thousands who were to come after them.

But the Circassians heard with incredulous ears the big words of the lieutenants of the czar. They knew not, besides, why he should pretend to rule over them. The Turks had indeed enjoyed the privilege of establishing fortified places of trade on their coasts, and as most of the tribes had been converted from paganism by Mahometan missionaries, they looked upon the sultan as their spiritual head and Allah's vicegerent, but they did not consider their free mountains as in any sense his domain, nor liable by any treaty stipulations to be transferred to another superior, much less to the unbelieving Padischah of the "flax-haired Christian dogs," and their old enemies, the Muscovites. Accordingly, like true and independent men and the sons of sires who without let or hinderance had pastured their flocks in these mountains since the days of the patriarchs, they refused to give up the ancient freedom of their homes, built on the rocks, at the bidding of the minions of the autocrat of the North.

The Cossacks who came galloping across the steppes on small, shaggy horses, and armed with unwieldly lances, the mountaineers looked upon with contempt. They sabred them and rode them down. As for the Russian infantry, they were terror-struck at the sound of the yell with which these centaurs of the mountains dashed into the thickest of their ranks, shooting them down with pistols, striking back their bayonets with their sabres, leaping from their saddles to poniard them, and the next instant gone on a gallop with the wind. The soldier who had been at the retreat from Moscow, and at the crossing of the Borodino, and who was a good and true grenadier, sturdy, brave, obedient to the word of command, felt all his forces desert him before the onset of such reckless riders and accomplished swordsmen. Once across the Kuban or the Terek, he never felt sure of his life, for there was always a Circassian lying in wait for him. When the column was wending its way through the narrow valley wherein nature held her supreme and silent reign, save that the tiny brook ran with gurgling sounds over its rocks and pebbles, or the nightingale made the thickets vocal with its song, or the bees flitting from flower to flower diffused through the air a pleasing murmur, wherein the oak spread its peaceful branches against the sky, the beech leaning over the path shed a grateful shade, and the vine hanging in festoons from elm to maple invited the weary soldier to refresh his lips with their purple clusters, there lay hid in this sweet solitude a hundred men and more armed for battle; and when the invaders no more suspected danger from the peaceful hill-sides than the bird from the snare of the fowler,

Instant, through copse and heath arose Bonnets and spears and bended bows; On right, on left, above, below, Sprung up at once the lurking foe.

Then instead of the singing of the brook, the carol of the nightingale, and the humming of the sweet-mouthed bees, were heard the rifle's sharp crack and the rattling of the musketry; the brook ran red with the blood of the slain; and the Russians, like the Roman legions cut off in the woods of the Germans, were left with none to bury them.

Nor even within the walls of the forts was the Russian soldier entirely safe from his wily adversary. For when silently beneath the moon the sentry is pacing the narrow rounds of the krepost, suspecting no enemy within a dozen leagues, but thinking rather of the hut on Polish plains or shores of Finnish lake fondly called a home, some Adighé or Lesghian who, unable to rest until he has slaked his thirst for vengeance in the blood of an infidel, has stolen down from the mountains and lain hid a day in the reeds of the river bank, creeps at nightfall like a wild beast out of his lair, glides unseen by the guard-post of the Cossack as the latter is taking perhaps a final pull at his bottle of schnapps, and crawling up within sight of the very beard of the sentinel, picks him off.

Accordingly the army of the emperor, instead of making an easy conquest of the Caucasus, was obliged to remain for the most part shut up in the chain of their miserable forts and kreposts. Here, when these fortified places were not boldly assaulted and carried by storm, as often happened, the troops fell a gradual prey to fevers and dysenteries, or to the want of those supplies which the peculation of the officers in charge of them continually either withheld or adulterated. The forts, situated on the coast of the Black Sea, could be relieved only during that half of the year which was suited for navigation; while those on the Kuban and the Terek were dependent on the precarious supplies conveyed overland at such times as the roads were passable. To keep up the spirits of the imprisoned garrisons the men were made to sing by word of command; and the dance was introduced as a military exercise. The Caucasus in fact became a southern Siberia, where the average life of the soldier was but three years.

Taught at length by repeated and disastrous failures that this method of attacking the Circassians was a fatal error, the czar next adopted the plan of sending into the mountains heavy masses of infantry supported by powerful trains of field artillery. These with great labor penetrated a certain distance into the interior for the purpose of opening roads from one important fortress to another, and guarding them with chains of mud forts or kreposts. They made reconnoissances in various directions, succeeded in isolating and subduing some of the districts lying on the Kuban and Laba rivers, and completed the subjugation of the more open country of the Kabardan tribes, who were obliged to accept terms of neutrality.

At the same time the invaders adopted the additional plan of blockading the mountains both by sea and land. Besides the line of fortresses commenced by Peter the Great on the Terek, extended by Catherine westward, and now completed from sea to sea, similar establishments were created on all the points of the Black Sea coast which could conveniently be approached by water. Under pretence of carrying out a rigid system of quarantine regulations and tariff laws, the object was to cut off the Circassians from all foreign intercourse, and especially from trade with the Turks, who were in the habit of supplying them with arms, gunpowder, salt, and various necessary articles of manufacture. At the same time, the Russians endeavored by making certain marts of their own free to the mountaineers, to induce them gradually to exchange the habits of war for those of trade and friendly intercourse with their adversaries. Emissaries were sent among the tribes to attempt to win them over to this change of policy; rank in the army was offered to the chiefs; or they were tempted by pensions; and even by the introduction of foreign brandy as well as foreign gold, efforts were made to spread the fatal net of Russian influence along all the footpaths of freedom in the mountains.

The Circassians liked the taste of the foreign liquor, and their eyes were not insensible to the charms of coined gold, of which they had before seen but little. The epaulettes also and stars and ribands were such baubles as were well adapted to captivate the fancy of semi-civilized chieftains; and the Russian fabrics were a temptation to all, especially to the women; but to the honor of the Circassians, the tribes with few exceptions disdained to sell their birthright of independence for a mere mess of pottage. Relations of trade and amity could be established only with the tribes whose position on the frontier compelled them to be neutral. The chiefs in the interior, though often jealous of each other, held themselves too high to be bought by the common enemy for a price; and the intrigue of the czar was on the whole as unsuccessful as his arms.

The Circassians at first made little or no change in their mode of warfare to meet the new tactics of the invader. Still despising the men who dwelt in plains notwithstanding their cannon "made the earth to tremble and the fruit drop from the trees," they continued from time to time to storm the kreposts sabre in hand. They leaped out of their places of ambush upon the columns which attempted to penetrate into their fastnesses; and attacking the more numerous enemy in dense masses as formerly practised by the Turkish spahis, setting all modern tactics at defiance, and bent on bearing down every thing before them by the mad fury of their onset, they rushed upon the Russian squares and guns as if they had been the mere branches of trees used in their own mock-fights.

For the most part they were victorious; but every victory cost them much precious blood, a fresh supply of which could not so easily be obtained as was the case with the viler sort which flowed in the veins of the imperial serfs and peasants. They were therefore obliged in the end to become less prodigal of it, and to adopt a system of guerilla warfare better adapted to the comparative fewness of their warriors and the extraordinary strength of their natural means of defence. To cut off convoys, to surprise outposts, to hover about the march of the enemy's columns, to lie in wait for them in the passes of the mountains, to pick off their officers from behind rocks and bushes, to attack in numbers only in cases of great moment and when the nature of the ground rendered a successful dash practicable before the straggling column could form square, and to undertake the storming of fortified places, and the plundering of hostile districts only when these were left comparatively defenceless, was finally the method of warfare which experience had forced upon the tribes at the period when Schamyl appeared on the scene as their leader.

XXX.

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

Schamyl was thirty-seven years of age when he was raised to the rank of a murschid and leader of the tribes. At that period in his prime, he had outgrown the early delicacy of his constitution, and was a warrior as distinguished in personal appearance as in character and intellectual culture. He was of middle stature; had fair hair, since turned to white; grey eyes overshadowed by thick, well-drawn brows; a mouth, like his hands and feet, small; a regular, so-called Grecian nose; and a complexion remarkable among his countrymen for its fairness and delicacy of skin. He had the light, elastic Circassian tread, with little movement of his arms walking, an erect carriage, and a naturally noble air and bearing. Perfectly master of himself and of his countenance, sternly self-collected even in moments of the greatest danger; holding in perpetual balance the ardor of the warrior and the calm of the prophet, he impressed with awe all who came into his presence. As he regarded himself as an instrument in the hands of a higher power, and held according to the doctrine of the Sufis that all his thoughts and decisions were the immediate inspiration of Allah, so he condemned to death the traitor and conferred the shaska of honor on a murid with equal calmness, manifesting neither anger nor satisfaction, almost as impassive and impersonal as fate itself. But while his ordinary manner was thus calmly commanding, his eloquence was as fiery as it was persuasive. "Flames sparkle from his eyes," said Bersek Bey, "and flowers are scattered from his lips."

Schamyl is said to have put on a white mantle, indicative of his priestly character as the second prophet of Allah; but his ordinary dress and arms were the same as those in use, with trifling variations, among all Circassians. They wear a surtout resembling a military Polonaise, without a collar, closely fitting the body, descending to the knees, and secured around the waist by a leathern girdle, which is ornamented according to the wealth or fancy of the wearer. On either breast of this garment are attached cartridge-pockets made of morocco leather of different colors, usually containing twenty-four rounds of ball cartridge, and at the same time decking the chest and protecting it. Beneath is a tunic, often richly embroidered, and of a gay color. The trousers are loose, excepting that from the ankle to the knee the folds are confined to the leg by straps. The calpac or cap has a crown similar in color to the cartridge-pockets, with a band of long, black goat's hair or white sheep's wool, which hanging down about the brows imparts a wild fierceness of expression to the dark, flashing eyes, and boldly cut features. Sometimes a chieftain will also wind around his cap a shawl in the form of a turban, his head being shaven after the manner of the Turks, though the tuft on the crown is generally much larger. The shoes are made of a single piece of leather, and neatly show the form of the foot. Under the other garments is worn a shirt of either silk or calico, besides that of mail sometimes put on in war; and over all is thrown in cold weather an ample cloak called a _bourka_, woven of sheep's wool or goat's hair, and impervious to rain.

This convenient and picturesque costume is also set off by much silver lace, embroidery, and all the elegant artifice of needle-work, but still more by the various arms without which no Circassian appears in public. A rifle is slung across the shoulders by a belt, this weapon having taken the place of the bow and arrows which are now seldom seen except as an ornament and mark of distinction. The sabre, called a shaska, is suspended by a silken cord in the Turkish fashion. In the girdle are stuck a pair of pistols, and a short, double-edged cama, resembling the sword of the ancient Romans. This latter arm in close conflicts with the Russian infantry is particularly dreaded from the dexterity with which it is wielded, a single stroke generally sufficing to sever a limb, while recovery from its stab is almost hopeless. Attached to the girdle also are a powder-flask, a small metallic box containing fat to anoint the rifle-balls, a purse of skin for carrying flints, tinder, and steel, and not unfrequently a hatchet, or knife in a sheath. The sabre is silver-hilted, without a guard; and its scabbard, richly embroidered, is composed of several pieces of morocco of different colors. The pistols also are mounted with silver; the poniard has often precious stones in its handle, and its sheath is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Sometimes a javelin in addition to other arms is carried, which is hurled to a considerable distance with an aim that rarely errs. Having a groove at the but-end, it is used also as a rest for the rifle, besides serving as a pole in leaping among the rocks.