Schamyl’s body-guard is composed of a selection from the Murids, and its members are called Murtosigators. Only the hottest enthusiasts among the Murids, men of whose entire devotion Schamyl is well assured, are chosen for this post, which is considered among the Caucasians to be in the highest degree honorable. The prophet puts the most implicit confidence in those whom he has once selected, and they on the other hand renounce every tie, and place their lives in his hand. If unmarried, they must remain so; and if married, they must strictly avoid their families during their period of service. Like Schamyl himself, they must live frugally, and carry out the Scharyat to the very letter. They wear peculiar insignia, and receive regular pay, with a share of all spoils; there are usually about one thousand of them, five hundred of whom always surround Schamyl’s person, access to which is very difficult. In time of peace, the Murtosigators are Schamyl’s apostles, and considerable sums are placed at their disposal for the carrying out of their propaganda. At the same time, they form a most efficient body of police, whose accusations might at once destroy the most powerful Naib. In war, they constitute the heart of Schamyl’s troops and the terror of the Russians, who have never yet succeeded in taking one alive.
At first, Schamyl had no revenue but what was derived from his razzias; but, at present, all the tribes pay a yearly tithe, and if any slain warrior leaves no direct heir, his property goes to the state.
Schamyl’s financial rule is ordinarily distinguished by extreme economy, and he is said to possess large concealed treasures: but if a valorous action is to be rewarded, or a hostile tribe won over, he will expend great sums. He has instituted a regular system of decorations, consisting of medals, epaulettes, and stars; while, on the other hand, his criminal code contains a no less exactly proportioned series of punishments, from the rag tied round the right arm, which is the stigma affixed to the coward—to decapitation, shooting, and stabbing to death. A stern and even-handed justice characterizes all Schamyl’s judgments, and he would long since have fallen a victim to the blood-feuds thus created against himself, were it not for the watchful devotion of his body-guard, the Murtosigators, who constantly surround him in public. The Imam gave once in his own person a frightful earnest of his determination to know no distinction of persons among the violators of his laws. Early in his career, he made a solemn vow that he would put to death whoever, under any circumstances, proposed to him submission to the Giaour. The people of Tchetchenia were well acquainted with the Imam’s oath; but in 1843, finding themselves threatened on all sides by the Russians, and at the same time left without aid by Schamyl, who was otherwise occupied, they in despair sent messengers to the latter, begging him either to help them, or to allow them to submit. The office of the envoys was regarded as so hazardous, that their selection was made by the lot. It fell upon four men of the village Gunoi, who accordingly set out upon their mission. Before reaching Dargo, Schamyl’s residence, however, the prospect of success appeared so slight, and the consequences of failure so appalling, that they determined to “eke the lion’s with the fox’s skin,” and without making any direct proposition to Schamyl himself, to endeavour to influence him through his aged mother, the Khaness, who was known to possess great influence over her son, and at the same time to be, like all the mountaineers, by no means insensible to money. A large bribe engaged the Khaness to undertake the dangerous task; and in a private interview she opened the matter to the Imam. What occurred between mother and son is unknown, but when the men of Gunoi anxiously inquired the result of the negotiation, the Khaness, pale and trembling, could only tell them that her son had determined to inquire of Allah concerning their request—and even as they spoke, it was proclaimed that the Imam had shut himself in the mosque, and had commanded that all the people should gather about it and remain fasting and praying till he reäppeared. Three days and nights, it is said, did Schamyl remain invisible, the prostrate multitude without rising higher and higher in fanatical exaltation, as their bodily frames became exhausted. On the fourth morning, Schamyl appeared on the flat roof of the mosque, surrounded by his Murids. All viewed with dismay his usually impassive countenance, distorted and changed by the traces of some past inward agony. After an interval of profound silence, he directed the nearest Murids to bring his mother into his presence, and when she had arrived, he thus addressed the people: “The will of the Prophet of Allah be done! People of Dargo, the Tchetchenes have dared to think of yielding to the Giaour, and have even ventured to send messengers, hoping for my consent. The messengers, conscious of their sin, dared not appear before my face, but have tempted the weakness of my unhappy mother to be their mediator. For her sake, I have ventured, aided by your prayers, to ask the will of Mohammed the Prophet of Allah; and that will is, that the first who spoke to me of this matter shall be punished with a hundred blows of the heavy whip. It was my mother!”
With these words, Schamyl signed to his Murids, who seized the venerable old Khaness, and bound her to one of the pillars of the mosque. At the fifth blow, she sank dead. Schamyl, with a wild outburst of grief, threw himself at her feet; but suddenly rising again, cried solemnly—“God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet! he hath heard my prayer, and I may take upon myself the remainder of my mother’s expiation!” With that, stripping off his upper garments, he commanded the Murids to inflict the remaining ninety-five blows upon his own back. The punishment fulfilled, Schamyl gave orders that the envoys of the Tchetchenes, terror-stricken witnesses of the preceding scene, should be brought into his presence. The ready Murids half drew their schaskas; but Schamyl, raising the men of Gunoi from the ground on which they had cast themselves in an agony of fear, said only, in his calm, impassive way, “Go back to your people; and for my answer, tell them what you have seen to-day.”
Schamyl is simple and abstemious in the extreme in his personal habits. Contenting himself with a few hours’ sleep, he sometimes spends night after night in prayer and watching without showing the least symptoms of weariness. Not yet sixty, he is full of life and vigor; though at present he takes an active share in the war only rarely, and on great occasions. He lives in Dargo, where he has caused the enemy’s deserters to build him a two-storied house in the Russian fashion, and is said to have three wives, the chief of whom is an Armenian of great beauty.
Once, or at most twice, in the year, the Imam retires to some remote cave, or shuts himself up in his most private apartments, and a strong cordon of watchful Murtosigators prevents any person whatever from having access to him. In this solitude he spends three weeks—fasting, praying, and reading the Koran. On the evening of the last day of his seclusion, the principal Mollahs and Murids, accompanied by a host of pilgrims, gathered in high expectation about the holy place, are summoned to meet him. He tells them that Mohammed has appeared to him in the form of a dove, revealing the mysteries of the faith, laying upon him such and such commands, and encouraging him to persevere in the holy war. Then showing himself to the throng without, he addresses them with the eloquence for which he is famed, rousing to the highest pitch their religious devotion and their hatred against the Muscovites. The whole assembly now joins in a solemn hymn. The men draw their schaskas, renew their oath to defend the faith and to destroy the Russians, and then disperse, shouting, “God is great! Mohammed is his first prophet, and Schamyl his second!”
The total population of the Caucasus does not exceed a million and a half, and Schamyl’s rule does not extend over more than six hundred thousand souls. The force under his command at any time, even taking the Russian accounts, has never surpassed twenty thousand men.
In the last ten years the Russian army of the Caucasus has consisted of more than one hundred and fifty thousand men, provided with every appliance of modern warfare, flanked right and left by sea-coasts commanded by their own cruisers, and directed by a government utterly regardless of human life. Fevers and Caucasian bullets are said to cost the Russians twenty thousand men yearly; and when the Czar sends a political offender into the ranks of the recruits for the Caucasus, he does not expect to see him again. The Russian ordnance accounts for the year 1840, show an expenditure of 11,344 artillery cartridges, and 1,206,575 musket cartridges!
The people of the Caucasus are said to have a legend that some day a powerful Sultan will arise in the West, and finally deliver them from the hands of the Muscovite padischah.
In 1839, the severest conflicts which had yet occurred between the Caucasians and their enemies the Russians took place. General Grabbe, an active officer, had succeeded to the command of the left flank of the army of the Caucasus, and determining to strike a decisive blow, concentrated a force of nine battalions, with seventeen pieces of artillery, and marched to attack Akhulgo. The assault took place on the 17th of August, when the Russians succeeded in obtaining possession of the outworks of the fortress. For the ensuing four days, Akhulgo was a scene of horror. In a succession of attacks, the Russian soldiers displayed that ferocious bravery which they evince whenever sufficient blood has been shed to wash the serf out of their hearts—while the mountaineers, mad with rage and despair, and hopeless of life, made their last aim the destruction of as many as possible of the accursed Muscovites—the very women fighting like tigresses. A Russian eye-witness says: