The entire population of Gerdaoul is Armenian, and the village, like most Armenian villages, is a thriving one. The Armenians are almost as good colonists as the Germans; thrifty, sober, hard-working, and astute, they are invariably better off than their neighbours, who as invariably call them thieves, and detest them heartily. In the case of the Armenians of Gerdaoul I hoped they wronged them, for I was certainly very hospitably received and honestly treated there. The women of the village kept out of our way for the most part, though we constantly caught glimpses of their figures flitting about, busy with some household work, bringing home the cattle, or carpet-making.
Before almost every house stood a large frame, constructed after the manner of the wool-work frames of English ladies, only that it was as large almost as the entire face of the hut. On these, without any copy to work from, the Armenian villagers worked those carpets, which are sold in Tiflis as Persian of a second quality, or as avowedly Armenian, from Shusha or Shemakha.
There is not unfrequently another and a smaller frame covered with canvas, on which are daubs of a brilliant colour, standing in the doorway beside the carpet frame. This is for quite another purpose, and is the property of the young men of the establishment. Armed with this gaudy shield and his old gun the Armenian fowler will procure as many red-legs as he needs for the pot. The modus operandi is as follows. A covey of birds having been found, the man approaches with his shield in front of him, so that from the first the birds never see their enemy. When the attention of the covey has been secured, the gunner stops, and planting his shield before him, watches the birds through a loophole in its centre. At first they probably retire before the strange thing that comes towards them, but as soon as it stops they stop too. Then perhaps the shield is gradually drawn back; as gradually, with heads craning forward, the birds follow. For some time there is a struggle between curiosity and fear; eventually curiosity gains the day, and the whole covey comes up to within some twenty yards of the snare, eagerly talking the matter over amongst themselves as they come. Suddenly the gunner gives a shrill whistle: instantly all the birds run together; and in that moment the charge of shot cuts through them, and leaves two-thirds of their number dead on the ground. Yet so foolish are they that, some of the Armenians told me, unless the gunner showed himself, the covey would keep reassembling round the snare until the last bird was killed. Thus covey after covey has been destroyed; and although the red-legged partridge is as numerous in these hills as mosquitoes in summer, still the Government has thought fit to pronounce the use of these deadly engines illegal, and to impose a heavy fine for the use of them. Of course in these hills the law is a dead letter, and the Armenians will very soon exterminate the bird that now swarms around them.
As I strolled through the village before continuing my journey, I noticed several large mounds rising abruptly in the streets, like large ant-hills. These I found on inquiry were the doors to the Armenian villagers’ cellars, and beneath each of them lay buried many a huge red jar of good native wine. Easy as it would be to open these unguarded vaults and abstract the contents, the wine is perfectly safe, as the community is too small for theft to escape unnoticed. At the birth of every man child the wealthy Armenian buys and buries a large jar of wine, and this is not unearthed until the son’s coming of age or marriage needs celebration. I should be glad to be present at one of these feasts, as the wine of the country only requires to be kept long enough to render it excellent.
Our own cellar on the march was all comprised in a goat’s-skin, about the size when full of an ordinary pillow, with a wooden nipple at one corner. This for safety’s sake I always carried on my own shoulders, and used for a pillow at night.
Having refilled this portable cellar and thanked our hosts, we resumed our ride across the table-land to the hills beyond. The day was December 18, the air brisk and fresh, with scarcely any frost in it—so mild indeed that during the ride I noticed several clouded yellow and small copper butterflies. The only life on this table-land seemed to be that of hawks and hooded crows, which were in great force. Duels between kestrels and crows recurred continually, and to my surprise the crow generally had the best of it. Once I came upon a grand specimen of the falcon, and rode as near as I could to the place where he was sitting, to get a shot at him, hoping to add him to my collection of birds. To my surprise he let me come within a dozen yards of him, and then wheeling slowly up, pitched some two hundred yards further off. I followed him: again he waited, letting me come much closer before he got up, and flying only a few yards before coming down again. This time when I approached him he had evidently turned sulky, and absolutely refused to budge until I struck at him with my whip, when he slowly moved away with a dead quail still in his talons. I could not help admiring his sullen pluck, so I left him to finish his dinner in peace.
Once out of the plain, the whole scene changed. This second range was one of genuine mountains well wooded, full of loud-voiced rushing torrents, tall columns of white mist, and hoary trees, from which the beard moss hung in grey festoons. In front of us the lords of Daghestan raised their glistening white crowns, so close as almost to seem to overshadow us. After riding some miles along the side of one of these watercourses, we came in the afternoon to a Tartar village, famous for its silk. Here on all sides were fine orchards, magnificent walnut trees, and endless rows of mulberries, on the leaves of which the silk-worms are fed. The houses were of a different character to those by the post-road and in the plain. No more mud huts, but rather châlets, the lower half of composition (mud and stone) and the top story of beam and wattle, covered by a wooden or thatched roof. As we rode through the main street, women drew up their white wrappings round their eyes, and scuttled away like rabbits as you pass through their warren. On the outskirts of the village was a large graveyard full of tall trees and grey old stones, on which the shadows fell; while through the half light a woman, in the white robe peculiar to her people, recalled a hundred and one ghost stories, which had frightened me into good behaviour as a child.
Just outside the village I shot a fine grey squirrel, the first squirrel I have seen in the Caucasus, where their skins are much prized, the furriers of Tiflis demanding as much as one rouble seventy-five copecks for such a skin as the one I secured. As the light failed, and we were beginning to feel the corners and inequalities in our saddles in a way that told us plainly how tired we were getting, another village came in sight; and here we decided to rest, though Allai did not by any means approve of the suggestion. On asking for food we were politely cursed to our faces; and when at last, in the middle of the bazaar, we found a ‘duchan’ (inn), it was of so uninviting an aspect that a good appetite was necessary to tempt a traveller inside it. Under a wide awning was a room open on three sides to within some four feet of the ground, and inside this enclosure was a kind of dresser sloping gradually from the back wall of the place to the window ledge. On this the customers sat, whilst below them and beside them the cooking of ‘sushliks’ went on. As soon as we were inside and seated, a host of the worst-looking scoundrels I ever saw swarmed round the place, to stare at and make remarks upon us. Never were the lions in the Zoo more eagerly and impertinently watched at feeding time than were we, and certainly never by such an ill-looking set as the owners of the shifting eyes and high cheek-bones who surged round us. The faces were worthy of a Chinese illustration of hell, and I know of nothing else to which to compare them. In their anxiety to get a good look at us, they even broke down the wooden walls of the house. All the time their tongues were busy, and from the way in which they constantly spat and gesticulated, their remarks could hardly have been favourable to us. Unwisely I helped myself from my goatskin, which gave great offence to the crowd, and evil and angry were the looks cast upon us; so that I felt that if they could but know that it was pork that filled out the sides of my saddle-bags, my fate would have been an unpleasant one. My man at this juncture lost his temper, and became abusive to a hook-nosed individual who had for some time past been peering down his throat. All I could do was of no avail; Ivan would not be pacified, and so angry did the ever-increasing crowd become that I was not at all surprised when a messenger arrived from the village governor or elder, warning us that we must on no account dream of passing the night in the village, for that although he had every desire to protect us, the people were beyond his control, and we should inevitably get our throats cut. So, though the clouds were gathering black, and the evening drawing in apace, we left the ‘duchan,’ and went forward farther and farther into the shadows of the mountains, leaving behind an angry murmuring crowd that for one rash act would have worried us as terriers worry rats.
And now, as we trudged wearily up the pass, Allai rode up to me, and, with many ejaculations, besought me not only to ride with my gun at the ready, but the moment I caught a glimpse of a man behind either bush or boulder to fire at him first, and ask questions after. His fear was that some of the rascals of the village we had just left would get on ahead, form an ambuscade, and fire upon us as we approached. He himself was evidently determined to use his gun whenever he got a chance; and, in spite of all I could say, made us all uncomfortable by his nervousness throughout the journey; the more so, as we had opportunities of seeing that in most things Allai was as hardy as other men. All things have an end—even the windings of a mountain torrent; and at last, when our limbs were aching with fatigue, a tiny hamlet in the deepest recess of that shadowy ravine cheered us with the hope of rest and refreshment. Two more minutes spent in warding off the attacks of a clamorous host of dogs; then a door opens, a flaming brand is held up, a swarthy face peers into the equally dusky countenance of our guide, and amid many greetings, we are ushered into the one-roomed cottage of a Lesghian Tartar shepherd.
Cushions and carpets were soon arranged by the hearth, slippers being brought for me; and then the hospitable good fellows set to work to serve us with their best. In the room were but few signs of civilisation—nothing, in fact, that would have been strange in the tents of the Ishmaelites of old. The men were rough and tanned to a copper-colour by the winds and weather of their wild mountain home. Their clothes were rough and ragged, and they were all armed to the teeth, never laying their kinjals aside from sunrise to sunrise; but their eyes were broad honest eyes, that looked the stranger steadily in the face; their manner to me was deferential as to an honoured guest, but perfectly self-possessed and confident.