The first route takes about eleven days, and costs about 16l. 16s.; the second takes (roughly) nine days, and costs about 20l. The third route is, I believe, the quickest and most expensive, but I have not tried it.
My own favourite route is the fourth, by adopting which you gain the advantage of a quiet and untroubled journey, with few vexatious changes, only one custom-house (and that with a consul-general at hand to help you through), and the possibility of alighting from the train within a drive of the outskirts of your hunting ground. The cost of the journey from London to Vladikavkaz by this route is about (including food, &c.) 20l., or as much more as you like to make it. From St. Petersburg to the Don the level lands of Russia glide by your carriage window unbroken by a single hill—I had almost said by a single tree. After Voroneze you enter the steppe country proper, a sea of flowers in spring, a perfect hell of dust, or mud, or wind, for all the rest of the year. From Voroneze these steppes roll right up to the foot of the main chain of the Caucasus, and standing on the plains near Naltchik you may see at a coup d’œil some hundreds of versts of snow-capped mountains rising like a sheer wall drawn from the north-east to the south-west of the peninsula. These snow-capped mountains and the ‘black hills’ (as the natives call the densely wooded foot-hills) constitute the principal game preserve of the country, and resemble, in their appearance and in the varieties of game with which they abound, the hill country of India, to such an extent that an old friend of mine, whose happiest days had been spent in shikar in the Himalayas, used to allege that all the game beasts found in the Caucasus were mere varieties of the Indian fauna.
Before dealing with the different districts and the game found in each, a few general hints to the traveller may not come amiss.
The Caucasus is the arena of the hardest fight Russia ever fought, and, having partially depopulated the country, she still holds it by force of arms. That being so, the more unpretentious a traveller is, the better is his chance of passing unquestioned about the country. Strong introductions from home and from the Foreign Office are more likely to hamper than to help, and if you want leave to go to any little travelled district, the best way is to take it. If you ask for it you are likely to be refused, but if you go in quietly, with a small outfit, and devote yourself exclusively to hunting, no one is likely to interfere with you.
The best outfit in the Caucasus is that which comes nearest to the hunter’s beau idéal, i.e. as much as he can carry himself. This of course, like all ideals, is unattainable, but you may come very close to it; and as there are many places in which, when in pursuit of mountain game, you cannot use horses, your baggage must be such as one, or at most two, men can pack in a bad place. Now a man should pack 50 lbs., and if your means are unlimited, your baggage need only be limited by the number of men you can persuade to accompany you; but the more men you have with you the less work you will get done per man, as the chief luxury of the Caucasian is gossip, and with a crowd of followers the temptation to loaf and talk would prove irresistible.
Two men, one as a guide and gillie, and one to leave in camp (both of them taking their share of packing whenever camp is moved), should be sufficient for anyone. Of course, where it is practicable, ponies should be used, as with them a greater weight can be packed, and packed too more expeditiously, than with men; and in most cases it will be found easy enough to take pack ponies to establish your main camp, proceeding from that on foot for short expeditions of three or four days. It is as well to remember that 200 lbs. is a good load for a pony in rough country, more, probably, than he could carry on most of the Caucasian trails, and from 50 lbs. to 60 lbs. quite enough for a man, although I have known one of my own men carry nearly double that weight during an ordinary day’s tramp, arriving at camp towards sundown brimful of spirits and devilment. I remember that when his load was off he stood on his head, and ‘larked’ about with the other fellows to relieve his exuberance of vitality. A tente d’abri, to weigh about 15 lbs., is the best tent for Caucasian travel, because it is the lightest and handiest to carry. My old tent used to weigh about 20 lbs., and this with an express rifle (about 10 lbs.), cartridges, field glasses, a revolver and a few sundries, used to constitute my own ‘pack.’[3]
When travelling with Caucasian porters and hunters it is as well to treat them as comrades and not as servants. Although they work for hire, they do not understand the relation of master and servant, and, though perfectly ready to help you when you need help, expect you to help yourself when you can, whilst in all matters of food and camp comfort they expect to share and share alike with the head of the expedition. May I digress here for a moment to say that this is one of the most important secrets of travel? Never allow yourself any luxuries in a ‘tight place’ which your men have no share in. If you have only one pipeful of tobacco, when provisions are short, share it with your men, and in the Caucasus at any rate you will not lose your reward. It is a good many years ago now, but the memory of one chilly night among the mountains is with me still, when I woke at 3 a.m. to find myself warm and snug under two extra bourkas (native blankets). The owners of the blankets were squatting on their hams, almost in the fire, and talking to pass the long cold hours until dawn. Having rated them for their folly and made them take back their blankets and turn in, I rolled over and slept again. When I next woke—it was 7 a.m. (shamefully late for camp)—the men were still crouching over the embers, helping to cook breakfast, their bourkas having been replaced upon my shoulders. I had paid those men off the day before this happened, and they left me next morning with a hearty ‘God be with you,’ utterly unconscious that they had done anything more than the proper thing towards their employer and companion who, ‘poor devil, could not sleep unless he was warm, and became ill if he did not get a meal every day in the week.’
A sleeping bag such as Alpine Club men use would be an excellent substitute for blankets, and with that, a pipeful of tobacco, a little bread and bacon and a small flask of whiskey, any reasonably keen and hearty sportsman should be able to hold out for a few nights among the mountain-tops in August. Indeed, if this is too much hardship for the would-be ibex hunter, he had better give up ibex hunting.
In all the best districts for mountain game round Elbruz the traveller will find smoke-blackened lairs amongst the rocks, and round beds amongst the fallen pine needles at the base of some great tree just on the timber limit. In these, for generations, the ibex hunters of Svânetia have rested from their labours and waited for the dawn.
