Sport in the Crimea and Caucasus

by Clive Phillipps-Wolley

Every now and then the sand-grouse would tempt me to call a halt; but though the place in which they pitched was marked ever so carefully and beaten as closely as men could beat it, we found it quite impossible to flush the birds without the assistance of a dog. As the light failed, we saw phalanx after phalanx of starlings wheeling, extending, and re-massing themselves in the dusky skies; and as we drew near the reed-beds, towards which their flight tended, we became witnesses of a piece of very interesting bird-life. Near the reed-beds were several trees, say half-a-dozen, and as they were bare of leaves, we could see on every tree some two or three hawks. As the starlings swept down with rushing wings to their nightly abiding-place, the hawks would glide from their perches, and swooping amongst them, break and turn the advancing host. Quick as the marauders were, the starlings did not seem to fare half so badly as might have been expected, and at last all the wanderers were at rest in their reedy home except one small band which, arriving later than the rest, had been terribly harried by the hawks, and seemed almost to have given up all hope of getting safe home. On a tree some distance from the reeds, halfway between the ground and the highest branch, sat in silent state, or gorged apathy, a splendid specimen of the king of birds. Chivied perpetually by the hawks, and fairly scared out of their wits, the little band of starlings swept round this desert throne, and finally settled in a black throng all round the mighty bird himself. To our astonishment he took no notice, never moving a feather; and there we left them, the hawks baffled and afraid to approach the starlings’ sanctuary, and the weary birds too tired to try again for their reed-bed, too scared to mind the monarch in their midst.

At one station we met a party of peasants who had been carrying soldiers’ kits from one village to another, and on their return had been stopped, beaten, and robbed of their wretched little earnings by highwaymen. At another we met an Armenian merchant with a ‘tchapar,’ or armed courier, who was so abominably insolent to me that I was obliged to give him an excessively rough shaking, which cowed him considerably; and on the appearance of my servant, who explained to the postmaster who I was, the fellow became as servile as, owing to my old coat, he had previously been insolent. Here, too, we heard of highwaymen, the post-station having been robbed of some horses, which the postmaster had been lucky enough to recover. The thieves had been caught, but I was assured that would matter little to them, as a trifling tip would set matters right with the local authorities, and they would soon be in a fair way to recoup themselves for their losses.

Later on, we met two of these gentry on the road, armed to the teeth and well mounted; but though they honoured us with a careful scrutiny, our gleaming gun-barrels had a deterrent effect upon them, and we drove on unmolested, though our driver suffered a shock to his nervous system which quite upset his merriment for the rest of the drive. I am told that amongst these Tartar highwaymen revolvers are quite common nowadays, most of them possessing at least one of these dangerous little tools.

The conversation turning on the lawlessness of the Caucasus, elicited from my servant a strange on dit of Tiflis. So utterly corrupt had every branch of the civil service in the Caucasus become some three months previous to my arrival therein, that the Emperor sent down his secret agent, K——, with orders to inspect the state of affairs in disguise, with plenary powers of dismissal and punishment with regard to civil officials. He was to clean the Augean stable of Tiflis. Supported by a band of detectives brought with him from St. Petersburg, he soon became the terror of the town. Common rumour had it that three of the worst in high places died of sheer fright shortly after his advent. This may not have been the cause of their deaths, probably was not, but that they were lucky enough thus to escape punishment by natural deaths is historical. One of K——’s first acts was to try the police. Disguised as moujiks, he and his men went bullying and swaggering through the streets, apparently drunk as lords. The difficulty was to get taken up, but after some time they managed to accomplish even that, and were hauled away to the police-station. Here K—— and his men tried to get off by apologies and excuses, which were naturally vain. Then, turning to his men, he said, ‘Hey brothers, suppose we give the good chief of police a rouble apiece; he will see then that we good Christians cannot be drunk.’ The roubles were paid, the liberty of the pseudo-moujiks obtained, and next day K—— came down and dismissed the chief of police and his whole staff. So through every branch of civic administration, meeting with hindrances at every step, but still steadfastly hunting down corruption wherever he suspected it. Three generals holding civic posts he forced into retirement; then, feeling that the opposition of the military in a town still under military law was too much for him, K—— retired.

But now a bitter white mist comes creeping over the earth, wetting us to the skin in spite of our heavy wraps, and stopping all conversation by the chill discomfort it brings in its train; so for three hours we lie down to rest at the next post-station, rising again at seven to welcome as bright a morning as any I had seen on my long drive. The country was pretty, with here and there a group of trees, and here and there a brook. The sun was bright in the heavens, the hoar frost sparkled on the ground, while every breath of the keen morning breeze brought high spirits and a hunter’s appetite along with it. The country now became hilly, even close by the post-road, and every now and then we saw a covey of red-legged partridges scudding up the bare hillsides at a terrible pace. These birds seemed to have taken the place of the sand-grouse now. A drive of twenty versts from Adji Kabool brought us to Goktchai, and here my post-cart was destined to stay its joltings and bid its jangling bells be still for some little time.

Goktchai is a large village, with one broad main street, beginning at the Tiflis end in a bazaar, passing halfway some barracks, where a few soldiers are quartered, and ending in the ordinary Caucasian village. On the way through the village bazaar my eyes rested on a freshly slain tûr, or mountain sheep, as well as other game; and the sight of the noble head with its grand horns, combined with a distant view of those peaks whence it had so lately come, was too much for my powers of resistance, and I determined then and there that I too would at least try to kill a tûr in the wild mountains of Daghestan.

At the post-station I heard the most glowing accounts of the quantities of game to be met with within two days’ ride of the village; but coupled with this came the news that these mountains were so ill-famed on account of the brigands who haunted them that scarcely any of the villagers had ever been there, and none would go again for any wage I liked to offer. This I received doubtfully, and through my man made many offers, but even ten roubles a day were refused by moujiks to whom a hundred roubles would have been a fortune with which to rest content for life. However, though I began to believe in the reality of the brigands, more especially as a post-cart had during the last few days been carried off bodily in broad daylight, I determined to wait a day and see whether no one would come to accept my liberal offer.

The day of waiting was spent in shooting hares and red-legs on the nearest hills, whose steep sides were simply alive with these swift-footed birds, running like flies on the almost perpendicular faces of the cliffs, or coming like bullets overhead as my man drove them to me. The difficulty of approaching the birds—as, though continually in sight, they would never rise and never stop running—reminded me of other days over the stiff furrows of Northamptonshire; though, even with the help of a sturdy Tartar, I found the bare rocks and mud-faced crumbling hillsides worse going than the wet ridge and furrow. The hills were covered with dwarf larch and pomegranate-trees, the fruit of the latter having, alas, been all culled for this year.