After leaving the high priest's tent we attended the religious ceremonies, in which there was nothing very striking. A sheep was afterwards killed in honour of our visit, and was served up, cut into small pieces, in a huge cast-iron pan. The ragout was black and detestable, but hunger made it seem delicious.
The women of the vicinity arrived in the evening, and began to sing in chorus, parading round the khouroul. Their strains were profoundly melancholy; nothing like them had ever yet struck my ears. Their voices were so sonorous and vibrating, that the sound was like that of brazen instruments; and heard in that vast solemn wilderness, it produced the most singular impression. After walking half-a-dozen times round the khouroul the singers halted, and forming line with their faces towards the temple, they stretched out their arms and prostrated themselves repeatedly. The women having ended, next came the mandjis or musicians, who made the air resound with the braying of their trumpets at the moment when the sun was descending below the horizon.
Next day we left the khouroul to return to the banks of the Manitch; I then continued my levelling along the course of that stream up to the point, where eighteen months before, on my way back from the Caspian, I had been stopped by want of water and pasture. In our return journey we passed through numerous Kalmuck camps on the right bank of the Manitch, and were everywhere received with the liveliest delight. As all these nomades are exclusively engaged in rearing cattle, our curiosity was greatly excited by the prodigious herds of camels, horses, and oxen that covered the plain.
Before we reached the Don we spent the last two nights in the lonely steppe, under the open sky. But six hours afterwards we were in Taganrok, in the drawing-room of the amiable English consul, surrounded by all the comforts of civilised life.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] We are quite convinced that the Comans mentioned by the Byzantine writers, are identical with the Kaptschaks of the Oriental historians. Rubruck's narrative supplies proof of this; moreover both peoples spoke Turkish. But in spite of all Klaproth's assertions, we do not believe that the Polovtzis of the Slavic chroniclers were Comans; for it seems to us far more rational to look for the descendants of the Comans among the Mussulman inhabitants of the south of the empire, who, as we learn from historic records, were already established in the same regions under the name of Kaptschak, at the arrival of Genghis Khan's Mongols.
[14] Note that in our day the Cossack population though augmented during a succession of ages, by numerous emigrations, does not exceed 600,000 souls; it must, therefore, in all probability, have been much less considerable in the fifteenth century, a supposition which further confirms our opinion that the Cossacks never formed a distinct nation.
[15] According to Du Plan de Carpin, the Circassians do not appear to have escaped unscathed from the attacks of the Mongols; but there seems no reason to think that they were really subjugated.
[16] Since we left Russia it has been proposed to equip the Cossack regiments at the cost of the government. The country would, of course, in that case be taxed, and would cease to differ in any respect from the other provinces.