The traveller seldom sees in these stanitzas any but women and children. With the exception of a few gray veterans, who have purchased by forty years of service the right of dying under the home-roof, the entire male population is under arms. Thus all the work falls upon the shoulders of the women, who must repair the houses, cleanse and dry the furs, take care of the children, and watch the cattle.
The Cossack soldiers, regulars and irregulars, are the guardians of the Steppes. To them is intrusted the security of the traveller, who is much exposed to the attacks of nomadic Turkomen, whose only occupation is robbery. The surveillance of these immense plains is not so difficult, however, nor does it necessitate so large a force as you might suppose. Small watch-posts, or platforms, of extreme simplicity of design, are raised at intervals on the higher grounds; they consist of four long stout poles planted in the earth, and supporting a timber floor, which is sometimes sheltered by a roof of timber. These are the observatories, the prospect-towers of the Cossacks, who can thus obtain a survey over an immense sweep of country, and exchange signals with one another. The horsemen always remain stationed under the platform, ready to leap into the saddle and to gallop wherever their presence may be required.
In the Steppes of the Caspian Sea the Cossacks give place to the Kalmüks, or Olöts, a people of the Mongolic race, who originally inhabited Turkistan, but abandoned that country, in 1778, for the banks of the Volga. Their life is wholly nomadic. They encamp under tents called kibitkas, formed of a trellis-work of wood covered with thick felt. In stature they do not often exceed the middle height; they are thin and ugly, with a swarthy skin, a large flat countenance, little eyes, broad nose, thick lips, and frizzled beard. They are inoffensive, hospitable like all Eastern people, but idle and cunning. Their costume differs but little from that of the Tartars-Nogáis. They profess the Lamaii religion, and obey the chiefs whom they themselves elect, and who bear the title of khans. The Russian Government levies among the Kalmük tribes encamped on its territory a body of irregular troops, whom it employs in the defence of its eastern and southern frontiers.
According to Madame de Hell, the Kalmüks are as friendly as the Cossacks in their reception of a stranger. “The last encampment,” she says, “where we passed the night, appeared to us one of the most considerable which we had hitherto met with. The country, almost transformed, was no longer saddened by the great sandy plains of the Caspian Sea and the Manitch.... Herds of horses, camels, and oxen furrowed the surface of the Steppe, announcing the wealth of the hordes to which they belonged. No hostile manifestation on the part of the latter occurred to disturb our security. Happy in receiving us in the very midst of their tents, these good Kalmüks never attempted to rob us even of the most trifling article. Their desires and their wants are so limited! To tame a wild horse, to roam from one Steppe to another on their camels, to smoke, and to drink koumis, to shut out the cold airs of winter with smoke and ashes, and to observe devoutly the superstitious practices of a religion which they cannot understand—such is their whole life.”
At intervals, the traveller who crosses the Steppes of the Caspian encounters with astonishment, in the most dreary localities, far from every Cossack village and Kalmük kibitka, a group of men, women, and children with bronzed complexions, with features strongly defined, covered with squalid and grotesque rags, dragging their naked feet over the damp and burning soil, and leading small vehicles loaded with implements and utensils of every kind. He easily recognizes in these beings of sinister mien, audacious mendicants, skilful thieves, musicians, blacksmiths, conjurers—what shall I say?—the débris, in a word, of that once great, and perhaps powerful race, now so degraded and corrupt, whose problematical history is the despair of the scholar. The scorn and mistrust of every nation—impatient of all discipline, all education—without law, without religion, without country—these men speak a language which none can understand. Of their real name they are themselves ignorant, and they accept with indifference that which is imposed upon them in different countries: in the East, Romany; in Moldavia, Tsiganes; in Italy, Zingari; in Spain, Gilanos; in France, Bohemians; in England, Gipsies.[35] The Germans call them Zigeuner; the Dutch, expressively but intolerantly, Heathens; the Persians, Sisech; the Hindus, Kavachee; the Danes and Swedes, Tatars; and the Arabs, Haramé. Their origin has been a theme of speculation for centuries, and all that seems certain, after a vast amount of research and discussion, is, that the cradle of the race was India. To what Indian people they should be affiliated is still doubtful; whether to the Zuts or Djalts of the north; the Tshingani, who dwelt near the mouth of the Indus; or the Tshandalas, chronicled by name in the laws of Menou.
We know that their first immigration into Europe occurred about the close of the tenth century, for we find them referred to in a paraphrase of the book of Genesis, written by an Austrian monk, about 1122. They are there spoken of as “Ishmaelites and braziers, who go peddling through the wide world, having neither house nor home, cheating the people with their tricks, and secretly deceiving mankind.” In the fourteenth century a considerable body settled in Wallachia, Hungary, and the island of Cyprus. Next, they invaded Germany, broke into Switzerland, and appeared in Bologna and other Italian cities. Like a besieging army they set down before Paris in 1427, but were not suffered to enter its precincts. A few years later they crossed into England, and gradually they overspread the whole of Europe. Their own account of themselves represented that they came from “Little Egypt;” that about four thousand of their number had been compulsorily baptized by the king, and condemned to seven years’ wanderings, while the remainder had been slain. At first, their wealth, their pomp, and their supposed penitence secured them a favourable reception; but when their wealth was dissipated, their pomp decayed, and their penitence discovered to be a sham, a storm of obloquy broke over their heads. Every European government levelled the most arbitrary decrees against them, which continued in force down to the middle of the eighteenth century. Various attempts have since been made to civilize and incorporate them with the general body of the population, but these have obtained a very limited success. They still remain a race apart, with their own language (Romany Tschib), their own traditions, their own customs, their distinct personal characteristics. They still remain a race cursed with the curse of perpetual restlessness; a mysterious impulse constrains them to wander; they live secluded from all other peoples; an atmosphere of secrecy enshrouds their inner life, their language, and their creed. They are gifted with a remarkable love of and capacity for music, and a strange wild charm invests their own gipsy-melodies. Their character is a grotesque combination of the most opposite qualities; for they are brave and yet cowardly; revengeful, yet loyal; treacherous, yet capable of the most passionate attachment; indolent, yet energetic; chaste, yet fond of licentious songs and dances. In a word, they are a problem to the ethnologist, the moralist, and the historical student; and fence themselves about with so impenetrable a reserve, that we may well doubt whether the full truth respecting them will ever be ascertained.[36]
The Tsiganes or Romany are very numerous in Southern Russia. They pass from town to town, from village to village, sometimes begging or stealing, sometimes exercising their peculiar trades and industries, and providing for their wants more honestly. They never establish themselves permanently in any place. They halt wherever the evening shades may chance to overtake them, stretch a few fragments of woollen stuff across the poles of their vehicles to serve for tents, kindle a fire with herbs, twigs, and dry branches, partly to cook their food, and partly to scare away the wild beasts, and fling themselves down pell-mell to sleep on mats or the naked earth. When morning dawns, they resume their life-long march—giving no thought to the future, no dream to the past—without object, hope, or purpose.