The farmers do not live upon their farms, however, but stay in the villages for mutual protection, which was necessary in ancient days, although they might be safe enough in these times if they lived in isolated places as our farmers do. It is very largely the custom all over Europe for the farmers to live in villages and go back and forth to their fields in the morning and at night. Scattered among the cultivated fields in the Caucasus are little huts of brush and sod, used as summer residences by the farmers, who bring out two or three days’ rations with them, and after working in the soil all day crawl into these miserable little shacks to sleep for the night.
There are many cattle and sheep upon the hillsides, and every herd and flock is attended by a shepherd, sometimes a man and sometimes a woman, and often a child. Even the geese have to be attended as they meander. No animal of value is ever left alone, and such attention is necessary to keep them from straying into the cultivated fields, for there are no fences. The property is divided by landmarks of stone; there are no other boundary marks, and you wonder if the farmers do not sometimes get into the wrong harvest field or plough up a piece of their neighbour’s land by mistakes.
There are a good many orchards of cherries, apricots, peaches, and other fruit, and a few vineyards, which belong to Germans. Wherever you see a vineyard down in that country, you may rely upon it that a German either owns it, or has set out the vines on rented land. The Germans are altogether the best farmers and make the most money, because of their economical methods, their intelligent industry, and their thrifty habits. About half way between Tiflis and Baku is a German colony that looks like an oasis in the desert. It is surrounded by mile after mile of vineyards.
Women work in the fields on equal terms with the men without any distinction of labour, and sometimes one is tempted to think that they carry the heavier ends of the load. You see young girls ten and twelve years old with hoe and spade when they ought to be in school or learning to sew and bake in the kitchen. But the czar needs so many men in his army that their mothers and sisters are required to go into the fields. You will notice, too, that women are switchmen and flagmen all along the railway lines, and if you will keep looking out of the car window you will see at every crossing a woman with a flag in her hand standing at attention, like a soldier on guard duty, as the train rushes by.
The government owns and operates the railway, and, although the running time is very slow, not more than fifteen or eighteen miles an hour, the management is admirable, and there are some excellent features which might be imitated with profit by the railway companies in the United States. For example, at every railway station on the platform, is a big wooden tank of cool water with plenty of dippers. Beside it is a similar tank of hot water, so that the passengers, who expect it, bring their teapots along with them. When the train stops, those in the third-class cars rush out for hot water and then go back to their places and enjoy a cup of home-made tea.
Trains of tank cars stand on every side track, and we seemed to pass one every few minutes, which is natural, because crude and refined petroleum is the principal freight hauled over the Caucasus from the oil wells at Baku to Batoum, the principal shipping port on the Black Sea.
Sleeping cars are free—at least every first-class railway carriage is arranged in compartments, so that the back of the seat can be lifted to make an upper berth, which is quite as comfortable as those in American Pullmans, but passengers have to carry bedding with them, sheets and pillows and blankets, and make up their own bunks when it comes time to retire. There is either a dining-car or a buffet on every train, from which coffee, tea, eggs, cold meats, bread and butter are served, so that a journey is made very comfortable.
Temple of the Fire Worshippers near Baku
When we went to bed, a few hours after leaving Tiflis, we were passing through a beautiful and highly cultivated agricultural country. When we awoke in the morning, we were in a desert and everything smelled of oil. The first thing I saw, looking out of the car window, was a long caravan of camels loaded with cans of refined petroleum, plodding through the sands on the shores of the Caspian Sea.