Early, then, in the morning, while the stars were making up their minds to retire for the day, and a faint pink was just stealing into the sky, our party rattled out of Tiflis; the English consul and myself on horseback, the rest of our party on wheels. Our way lay through the Tartar bazaar, where the fiery-bearded Persians and astute Armenians were already astir, and then over the broad Kûr, and through lands which but for the artificial irrigation of which the Kûr is the source would be absolutely barren. On our road we met a quaint cavalcade, if that may be called a cavalcade which contained but one horse: a vast train of donkeys, some brown, some white, several hundreds in number, part bearing bales of merchandise, and part their owners. Here and there amongst the troop a black conical tent ambled along, nothing visible but the tent with four thin legs trotting along under it. This was a Tartar or Persian on his donkey, his ‘bourka’ round his neck, hanging in loose folds to his animal’s knees, and completely concealing man and beast. The caravan was on its way to Persia, and was the only one of the kind I ever saw, though trains of camels and carts are of frequent occurrence between Batoum and Tiflis.
Kariâs, or the black summer, is a name which this steppeland has earned for itself by the excessive virulence of the fever which raged there after the introduction of artificial irrigation. It is some thirty-five or forty versts from Tiflis, and, besides being the preserve of the Grand Duke and the refuge of Tiflis outlaws, it is the home of several bands of Tartars and one German planter.
It was to the home of this latter that we turned our horses’ heads, after being ferried over the broad dark waters of the Kûr. All the road between Tiflis and this ferry had been bare and uninteresting: low grey hills, looking parched and lifeless on our right, a grey dusty steppe at our feet, and on our left the bare unlovely banks of the Kûr, with here and there a huge vulture sitting gorged and sullen on its shore. By the ferry a belt of low woodland lent some interest to the scene; but this was left behind as soon as the river was crossed; and far away on every hand stretched the level steppeland, so bare of succulent herbage as to appear anything but pleasant pastures for the many flocks of sheep and herds of antelope that roam over its surface.
An hour’s ride, straining our eyes in a vain endeavour to catch a first glimpse of the antelopes, whose home we were invading, brought us to a canal with a bridge and toll-house or something of that nature; and the bridge once crossed, the clamour of a dozen curs and the appearance of several Tartars advised us of our arrival at our journey’s end. The planter himself came to meet us—a young fellow speaking many languages as well as his own, a mere boy amongst the worst-looking gang of labourers man ever put eyes upon, yet managing them fairly well, and making his venture pay. His home was a mere hut, utterly destitute of any of the comforts or refinements of that civilisation to which he had apparently been brought up; and it would indeed need to be a lucrative venture which should tempt a man to lead the life our friend Adolphe led. He had been made a magistrate by the Tiflis Government, with exceptional powers and privileges; but, as he himself told us, he was a magistrate merely in name, unable to carry out any measure he might deem necessary, utterly powerless to punish or bring to punishment, and so used to the evils by which he was surrounded as to have grown perfectly callous to them. Murder, horse-stealing, and every other crime are of almost daily occurrence. However openly committed, it is impossible to convict, as none dare witness against the perpetrators of the crime, knowing full well that, should they do so, they would live in hourly danger of their lives from that time forth. And even in the rare cases in which the crimes have been fully proved, and the criminals safely conveyed to Tiflis, they have been set free again on one plea or another, until the name even of justice has lost all meaning in the land. In the six or seven years during which my host has lived at Kariâs he has had his horse shot under him on one occasion, has had a bullet put through his bourka on another, and on a third, whilst riding into Tiflis, a bullet fired from the rifle of a concealed assassin broke the jaw of the servant who accompanied him. If he makes himself obnoxious to any of his neighbours in the execution of his magisterial duties, his best horses are mutilated, his cattle shot, or his house fired. Labour is so dear and labourers so scarce that he cannot afford to choose those he employs, and though a man comes to him red-handed, he must engage him and be content. Thus it happens that his own men are the veriest scum of Tiflis.
One fellow who acted as my guide was wanted by the Tiflis police for murder, and a speech made by my host himself illustrated, I thought, as well as anything could, the utter lawlessness of Kariâs. ‘We generally have mutton,’ he said, ‘though, as I have no sheep and don’t buy it, I don’t know where it comes from; some of my fellows steal it, I suppose.’ Raids upon sheep and cattle are of common occurrence, and free fights take place between the villages. The cattle stolen are generally driven across the river and sold at Elizabetpol. Every village is, I believe, theoretically responsible for the misdoings of each of its inhabitants; and thus a man’s neighbours are to some extent converted into amateur policemen, who watch and report his deeds. But as a crime is rarely the result of one individual’s enterprise, the culprit is rarely run to ground; and even if he is, the village pays an inadequate fine, and there is an end of it.
Tiflis itself is under military law, and at the moment when I left it for Kariâs three men were under sentence of death for a glaring outrage committed in broad day in the streets. Two were to be hanged, and one, in consideration of his rank as a nobleman, though filling a menial position, was to be shot.
But the stories of the lawlessness of the Caucasus might be continued ad infinitum, were it not that they would become monotonous, and, as our consul himself remarked, the state of the country is so bad that an honest account of it would not find credence in England. I am tempted to say more on this subject than I might otherwise have done, because travellers who have recently written on the Caucasus, having kept much to the post-roads, and, luckily, escaped molestation upon them, have, I think, given too peaceful a colouring to their picture of the country through which they drove. In another place I may be able to say more of the safety of the Russian post-roads.
That the fever from which Kariâs derived its evil name was of an exceedingly virulent nature may be imagined from the fact that in one summer, out of a village of three hundred inhabitants, only nine were left alive. The whole place seems plague-stricken in summer, even the river having its disease, in the shape of a small worm, which, burrowing into the skin of those who bathe in it, eats away whole joints, until the part affected has the appearance of being withered. One man amongst those we saw at Kariâs had a withered finger-joint, which he attributed to this cause.
About ten o’clock we rolled ourselves up in our bourkas, thanking our stars that we were not settlers in the Kariâs steppe, though as a hunting-ground it is in every way desirable. Before turning in we were warned that we ought to be up early, and, thanks to the too lively nature of our couches, we were up long even before we need have been. At one o’clock the misty air feels chill and comfortless; we were glad to busy ourselves vigorously in preparing our horses for the day’s sport; and, though we felt like blind men following the blind, we blundered on at a quick step after our guide into the darkness that encircled us. After going some three versts, that seemed to us thirty, we took our guide’s advice, and, hobbling our horses, rolled ourselves in our bourkas, to lie waiting in the dark until the dim light stealing over the plains should show us the antelopes browsing within rifle-shot. But all our dreams had to be of the waking sort, for the intense chill made it too cold to sleep, and, though the grey dawn showed us no confiding herds, it was none the less welcome on that account.