“After supper,” says Mr. MacGahan, “I stepped outside the tent to take a look on the surrounding scene, and enjoy the cool air of the evening. The new moon was just setting; lights were gleaming in every direction over the plain, showing that ours was not the only aul in the vicinity. The bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle could be heard, mingled with the playful bark of dogs and the laughing voices of children, which came to us on the still evening air like music. In places the weeds and grass of last year had been fired to clear the ground for the new growth, and broad sheets of fire crawled slowly forward over the plain, while huge volumes of dense smoke, that caught the light of the flames below, rolled along the sky in grotesque fantastic shapes like clouds of fire.”
The kibitka, according to our traveller, is made up of numerous thin strips of wood, six feet long, which are fastened loosely together like a vine trellis, and can be opened out or folded up compactly, as necessity requires. As the strips are slightly curved in the middle, the framework, when expanded, naturally takes the form of a segment of a circle. Four of these frames constitute the skeleton sides of the tent; and on their tops are placed some twenty or thirty rafters, properly curved, with their upper ends inserted in the hoop, three or four feet in diameter, that serves as a roof-tree. The method of pitching a kibitka may be thus described:—As soon as the camel with the felt and framework reaches the chosen site, he is made to kneel down, and a couple of women seize the framework, which they straightway set up on end, and extend in the form of a circle. Next the doorposts are planted, and the whole bound firmly together with a camel’s-hair rope. Then one of the women takes the afore-mentioned wooden hoop, and raising it above her head on a pole, the other proceeds to insert in their proper holes the twenty or thirty rafters, fastening their basis to the lower framework by means of hoops. When a thick fold of felt has been let down over the framework, the kibitka, which measures about fifteen feet in diameter, and eight feet in length, is complete. In appearance it is not unlike a magnified beehive of the old pattern.
The Kirghiz nomads are fierce, crafty, often cruel, but they hold the life of a guest sacred. For his property, however, they have no such high consideration, and they are not above the temptation of plundering him of any article that attracts their fancy. Their chief amusements are horse exercises and falconry. They love the chase with a true sportsman’s passion; loving it for itself, rather than for the game it procures, as they can conceive of nothing daintier than a dish of mutton—a dish which they prepare with touching simplicity. For, a sheep having been skinned, they cut it into quarters, which they plunge into a large caldron of water, and boil for a couple of hours. Generally, on a principle of severe economy, they cook the intestines with the meat, not taking the trouble even to separate them. The guests arrange themselves in a circle on carpets of felt; the men, as recognized lords of the creation, occupying the foremost places, the women and children sitting in the rear. The smoking quarters of mutton are removed from the pot; each man draws his knife, slashes off a cantle, eats until satisfied, and passes what is left to his wife and children, who speedily effect a clearance. The dogs come in for the bones. Afterwards, bowls of the liquor in which the meat has been boiled are handed round, and not a Kirghiz but swallows the greasy potion with as much zest as an epicure takes his glass of dry champagne. This broth, koumis (fermented mare’s milk), and tea, are his customary liquors; but the tea, instead of being prepared in the European fashion, is made into a kind of soup with milk, flour, butter, and salt. In every respectable Kirghiz kibitka the women keep constantly upon the fire a vessel of this beverage, which they offer to visitors, just as a Turk serves up coffee, and a Spaniard chocolate.
In their mode of life the Kirghiz display a certain originality. They spend the three winter months in mud huts on the bank of a river or a small stream, and resume their annual migrations as soon as the snow begins to melt. During these migrations they live in tents, and never halt in one spot for longer than three days. Their march is often continued until they have travelled three or four hundred miles; then they turn round, and retrace the same route, so as to reach their place of hibernation before the snow falls. In their selection of quarters they seem guided by some traditions handed down in the different auls; and not unfrequently a body of Kirghiz will pass over much excellent grazing ground, and travel many a league to inferior pasturage. The hardships they undergo are so many, their pleasures so few and mean, their objects so commonplace, that one is tempted to wonder what kind of answer an intelligent Kirghiz would return to the question not long ago put with some emphasis before the reading public, “Is life worth living?” Those higher motives, those purer aspirations which the cultivated European mind delights to recognize, are unknown to the wild nomad, and he spends day after day, and month after month, in what would seem to be a drearily monotonous struggle for existence, under conditions which might be supposed to render existence an intolerable burden. But then he can love and suffer as we know civilized men and women love and suffer; and love and suffering will invest the harshest, coarsest life with a certain grace and consecration.
There was once a young Kirghiz, named Polat, who was affianced to Muna Aim, the comeliest maiden in the aul, or community, of Tugluk. Her father, Ish Djan, had received the customary kalym, or wedding present, and the marriage day had been appointed. But before it arrived, “the blind fury with the abhorred shears” had “slit” Polat’s “thin-spun life;” and Muna Aim was set free from her promise. Suluk, Polat’s brother, came forward, however, and, in his anxiety to recover his brother’s property, which she had received as her dower, claimed her as his wife. The claim was supported by her father; but Muna Aim, who had sufficient means to live on, considered herself a widow, and refused to marry. She was driven from her father’s kibitka; and taking her camel, with her sheep and goats, her clothes and carpets, she bought a little kibitka for herself, and lived alone, but not unhappy. For her heart was really with Azim, a young Kirghiz belonging to another aul, and she had consented to marry Polat only in obedience to her father. A second sacrifice she was determined not to make. But the old women grew very angry with Muna Aim, as she continued to enjoy her independence. “What is the matter with her?” they cried. “She will not go to her husband, but lives alone like an outlaw.” She was an innovator, boldly breaking through a traditional custom, and they resolved to “reason” with her. Their arguments were those which the strong too often employ against the feeble; they hurled at her bad names, and they scratched her face and pulled her hair. Still she would not yield; and in contentment she milked her sheep and goats, drove them to the pasture, and drew water for them from the well, waiting for some happy turn of fortune which might unite her with her Azim.
At last Suluk also resolved to try the effect of “reason.” With three or four friends he repaired one night to her kibitka, and broke it open, resolved to carry her off to his tent, and compel her to be his wife. Love and despair, however, lent her so wonderful an energy, that she resisted all their efforts. They dragged her to the door; but she clutched at the door-posts with her hands, and held so firmly, that to make her let go they were forced to draw their knives and slash her fingers. When they succeeded in hauling her into the open air, her clothes were torn from her body, and she was covered with blood from head to foot. She continued her brave struggle; and Suluk, leaping on his horse and catching her by her beautiful long hair, dragged her at his horse’s heels, until it came out by the roots, and he was compelled to leave her on the ground, naked, bleeding, half dead.
Information of this outrage, however, reached the Yarim-Padshah (or “half emperor”), as the tribes of Central Asia call the redoubtable General Kauffmann; and he despatched a party of Cossacks to seize its author. Suluk was speedily captured, and sent, a prisoner, to Siberia; while the faithful and courageous Muna Aim recovered her health and her braids of long dark hair, and in the winter met the lover for whom she had endured so much, and was happily married.
Thus the reader will perceive that romance flourishes even in the wildernesses of the Kyzil-Kum; and that a Kirghiz woman can be elevated by a true love like an English maiden.
Continuing his ride after the Russians, Mr. MacGahan, when near Irkibai, came upon the ruins of an ancient city. It had once been about three miles in circumference, walled, and on three sides surrounded by a wide and deep canal, on the fourth by the Yani-Daria. The wall had been strengthened by watch-towers, and on the summit of a hill in the centre stood two towers thirty to forty feet in height. The whole was built of sun-dried brick, and was fast crumbling into shapeless mounds. At Irkibai Mr. MacGahan met with every courtesy from the commandant, but nothing was known of the whereabouts of General Kauffmann. There were but two courses before the traveller—to return, or go forward. Mr. MacGahan was not the man to retrace his steps until his work was done, if it were possible to do it; and he resolved on continuing his progress to the Oxus. On the 7th of May he rode forward. At first he followed the regular caravan route, which, as many traces showed, had also been that of the Russian division, under the Grand-Duke Nicholas. It crosses the thirsty desert—twenty leagues without a well. Fair enough is it to the eye, with its rolling lines of verdant hills; but the hills are only sand, and the verdure consists of a coarse soft weed that, when it flowers, exhales a most offensive odour. Beneath the broad leaves lurk scorpions and tarantulas, great lizards, beetles, and serpents. The traveller, if he lose his way in this deadly waste of delusion, may wander to and fro for days, until he and his horse sink exhausted, to perish of thirst, with no other covering for their bones than the rank and noxious herbage.
Across the gleaming burning sands, while the sun smote them pitilessly with his burning arrows, rode our brave traveller and his companions. Their lips cracked with thirst, and their eyes smarted with the noontide glare, and their weary horses stumbled in the loose shifting soil; but rest they durst not until they reached the well of Kyzil-Kak. How glad they were to throw themselves down beside it, while some kindly Kirghiz, who had already refreshed their camels and horses, drew for them the welcome water! MacGahan made a short halt here, feeding his horses, and sharing with his attendants a light meal of biscuits and fresh milk, supplied by the Kirghiz, and then—the saddle again! Meeting with a caravan, he learned from its Bashi, or leader, that the Russian army was at Tamdy—that is, instead of being, as he had hoped, within a day’s march, it must be upwards of two hundred miles distant; and as it was just on the point of starting for Aristan-Bel-Kudluk, which was still further south, it was impossible to say when he might overtake it. His disappointment was great; but his cry was still “Onwards!” By nine o’clock next morning the indefatigable traveller reached the foot of the grey, bare, treeless heights of the Bukan-Tau. Though but a thousand feet in elevation, they presented, with their glancing peaks, their conical summits, their deep valleys, and awful precipices, all the characteristics of an Alpine range of mountains. Resting there for some hours, he took up, on the morrow, a line of march around their northern slope, and gradually descended into the plain. From some Kirghiz he ascertained that the Grand-Duke Nicholas had joined General Kauffmann two days before, and that the united Russian army had then marched for Karak-Aty. The problem of overtaking it seemed more incapable than ever of a satisfactory solution. But, on studying his map, he found that from the point which he had reached it was no further to Karak-Aty than to Tamdy, and he instantly resolved to follow up a caravan route to the south, which promised to lead to the former.