[6] In crossing the mountainous country between Algeciras and Cadiz, I halted at a venta situated in the midst of a wood. I found there only a little boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a little girl of nearly the same age, brother and sister, who were sitting by the fireside and twisting mats. They sang a romance, the words of which I did not understand, but the air was simple and naïve. The weather was dreadfully stormy, and I remained two hours at the venta. My juvenile hosts repeated so frequently the couplets of their romance, that it was easy for me to get the air by heart. To this air I composed the romance of the Abencerrage. Perhaps Aben-Hamet was mentioned in the romance of my two little Spaniards. I may add that the dialogue of Granada and the king of Leon is imitated from a Spanish romance.
[7] All the world knows the air of the Follies of Spain. This air had no words, at least none which expressed its grave, religious and chivalrous character. This character I have endeavoured to give in the romance of the Cid. This romance, having got into the hands of the public without my consent, some celebrated masters did me the honour to set it to music. But, as I had expressly composed it for the air of the Follies of Spain, one of the couplets becomes complete nonsense, unless, reference is had to my original intention.
My song shall be a nobler theme than thine, Ere long it will become the folly of Spain, etc.
In short, these three romances have little other merit than their adaptation to three old airs of undoubted nationality: besides this, they bring on the dénouement of the story.
THE PRISONERS OF THE CAUCASUS
COUNT XAVIER DE MAISTRE
The Caucasian mountains have long been enclosed by the Russian empire without belonging to it. Their fierce inhabitants, cut off by language and by difference of interests, form a large number of petty tribes which have little political intercourse one with another, but which are all animated by the same love of independence and of plunder.
One of the most numerous and most formidable is that of the Tchetchens, who inhabit the great and the little Kabarda, provinces whose lofty valleys extend as far as the summits of the Caucasus. The men of this tribe are handsome, brave, and intelligent, but they are robbers and cruel, and in a continual state of war with the troops of “the line.”[8]
In the midst of these dangerous hordes, and in the very centre of this immense chain of mountains, Russia has established a line of communication with her possessions in Asia. Redoubts, placed at intervals, protect the road as far as Georgia, but no traveller would dare to venture alone across the space separating them. Twice a week a convoy of infantry, with cannon and a considerable party of Cossacks, escorts travellers and government dispatches. One of these redoubts, situated at the outlet of the mountains, has become a village with a fair-sized population. Its position has caused it to receive the name of Vladikavkaz:[9] it is used as the residence of the commandant of the troops who perform the troublesome duty which has just been mentioned.
Major Kaskambo, of the Vologda regiment, a Russian nobleman, belonging to a family of Greek origin, was to go and take up the command of the station at Lars, in the gorges of the Caucasus. Impatient to reach his post, and brave to rashness, he had the imprudence to undertake this journey with the escort of some fifty Cossacks whom he commanded, and the still greater imprudence to talk of his plan and boast about it before it was carried out.
The Tchetchens who live near the frontiers, and are called “peaceful Tchetchens,” are subject to Russia, and have in consequence free access to Mozdok; but most of them keep up friendly relations with the mountaineers and are very often partners in their robberies. These last, apprised of Kaskambo’s journey and of the very day of his departure, proceeded in great numbers to the road by which he was to travel, and prepared an ambush for him. About twenty versts from Mozdok, at the turn of a little hill covered with brushwood, he was attacked by seven hundred mounted men. Retreat was impossible: the Cossacks dismounted and sustained the attack with great firmness, hoping to be relieved by the troops of a redoubt which was not far distant.