A group of Don Cossacks at breakfast
years, which is the period when her armies just began their sanguinary march into this ancient corner of the world. What these people need is not military subjection, but education, enlightenment, and contact with civilization, and an administration based on the principles of humanity and the enlightenment born of learning and culture. But it is outside of my present purpose to suggest what ought to be or what might be; it is rather my restricted duty to give the picture of the scene as I found it unfolded before me—all these different villages of the many tribes of Caucasia, living in their backwardness and their idleness; knowing not the advantages of education, consequently craving it not; crude in their superstitions; quaint in their customs; bold and medieval in their attitude toward their fellow-men. On the south slopes of the Caucasus as well as here on the north slopes are these villages found; though instead of being Circassian, Kabardine, and Ossettes, they are Mingrelians, Kurds, Georgians, Gurians, Persians, Medo-Persians, Tartars, Armenians, and other tribes spilled out of Asia. The crying need universally throughout the region is for a wise administration, making for increased enlightenment and education, instead of which is maintained the brutal iron régime of militarism.
Upon our return to Vladikavkaz I donned my Cossack uniform, which was awaiting me, rejoined my friends the officers, and the second day thereafter we began our journey eastward to the oil city by the Caspian Sea. During the first days that f appeared on the streets in uniform I could not get over the sense of bewilderment and surprise occasioned by the salute I received from every soldier whom I met; for it is a rule of the Russian army that an officer shall be saluted at all times. Had any one of these soldiers stopped to speak to me, the hopelessness of my predicament would have overcome my wits, I am sure, for at that time I knew scarcely any Russian at all. I certainly could not have understood or answered a single sentence. I was saved the embarrassment of such a situation, however, through the fact that the discipline of the Russian army is such that no soldier would think of addressing an officer until he was spoken to. Secure in this knowledge, I did not hesitate to go among the men even when unaccompanied by one of my officer friends.
CHAPTER IV
UNDER MARTIAL LAW
The journey to the “Oil City”—First view of the Caspian—Armenians and Tartars—Russia’s monstrous misrule—Tiflis blood-stained and battered—How to wield a Caucasian dagger—Daily perils—Chiaroscuro of officers’ life—A stirring departure.
HE officers occupied the first-class compartments of two cars attached to a regular train, run from Moscow to Baku and Tiflis, and the escort of some forty odd Cossacks who accompanied our party were relegated to a fourth-class car somewhere at the rear of the train. The first two cars immediately behind the engine were filled with political prisoners who were being transferred from one prison to another. For the most part conversation among the officers was on topics very remote from the political situation of their country, remote even from the business in hand. Whenever I cared to bring up the subject, however, my questions were always readily and frankly answered. They accepted the revolutionary situation as unfortunate and unhappy, but a situation to be solved through military measures rather than through political concessions or altered civil administration.
I shared a compartment with a dashing young captain, the son of one of the most distinguished families in Caucasia. The father of my friend was at one time the viceroy of the region. In discussing with him his own personal sensations when combating the revolutionary activity, I was startled to have him tell me that “nowadays in shooting at a human being he felt precisely the same as he used to feel when, as a younger man, he used to shoot deer in the mountains.” “The people here,” he added, “are all deserving of what they get.” Thereupon he dilated upon the wicked ways of the Tartars and the Armenians, whose constant feuds were then spattering Baku and Tiflis, and much of the country which lies between, with crimson stains. This same officer who spoke with such carelessness of the taking of human life had all of the instincts and the fineness of a man of refined and poetic temperament. At night, for example, I found him sitting at the car window, hour after hour, entranced with the marvelous beauty of the night; the snow-capped peaks of the mountains, fast receding from us as we sped toward Daghestan; the glorious vault of blue studded with bright, but cold, metallic stars; and as I asked him why he did not sleep, he answered: “I am fond of sleeping but not in the night-time; this beauty attracts me more than my couch.”