twenty political arrests. Demolished houses were in every block. Occasionally an entire block had been swept away by fire. That afternoon when I talked with General Alikhanoff he explained to me that when “his soldiers were ordered to burn down a certain house they do not always have time to see that other houses do not burn also!”
Toward noon we came upon a group of Cossack barracks, and I proposed to Ivan that we run through them.
“Not for a thousand rubles,” replied the redoubtable Ivan. But I finally persuaded him.
No soldier above the rank of what we would call corporal was anywhere in evidence. Near a thousand lawless, undisciplined, unrestrained men lounged about the barn-like halls, singing boisterous songs, smoking, and relating stories. Months of service had hardened them and apparently developed traits that lie dormant when they are at home in their own villages. At all events these fellows seemed much more brutalized than any I saw on my expedition from Vladikavkaz. In one room I found a pile of new blankets more than ten feet high, blankets of a quality and texture never before supplied to an army. In this same room twelve or fourteen men were amusing themselves with as many brand new American sewing-machines.
“Where did you get these?” I asked in amazement.
“We bought them,” replied a hulking fellow of at least six feet three, and pointing to a large shop up the street added: “Go up there and learn about it.”
When first I entered these barracks I refrained from much conversation, but as the mood of the men was jovial and amiable I told Ivan to explain to them that I was in Circassian dress only by courtesy, and that in reality I was an American correspondent. At the beginning I entertained some doubt as to the wisdom of this frankness, but as soon as my position was made clear to them they were friendlier than ever, and took it as a great compliment, and honor, that I should wear their costume. They took me all over the barracks, allowed me to photograph them, and even invited me to lunch with them. I was anxious, however, to learn more about the fine blankets and the American sewing-machines.
The shop pointed out to me from the barracks windows proved to have been a small department store. I found it decidedly a “had been.” The floor space was a vast heap of merchandise that might have been tossed up by a cyclone. The shelves were stripped. The fittings of the store were twisted and broken. The proprietor, a sorrowful bankrupt Armenian, was perched on an upset counter contemplating his ruin. His nationality was an advantage to me for Ivan was able easily to satisfy him as to my status, and he opened up readily. The previous evening, just after he had closed his place for the night, a crowd of Cossacks—the same whom I had visited in their barracks—had come along with push-carts. They had smashed in his doors and windows, ransacked the whole shop, taken what they wanted of trinkets, blankets, and sewing-machines, and carried off their loot in the hand-carts, leaving behind them the pile of wreckage I saw.