The Persians, like the Indians, are gradually deserting Astrakhan. The prohibitive system of Russia has destroyed all their commercial resources, and now only some hundreds of them, for the most part detained by penury, are to be found in their adopted country, employed in petty retail dealings. We went over the vast Persian khans of Astrakhan, but saw none of those gorgeous stuffs for which they were formerly so celebrated. The ware rooms are empty, and it is but with great difficulty the traveller can now and then obtain cashmeres, silky termalamas, or any other of those productions of Asia which so much excite our curiosity, and which were formerly a source of prosperity to the town.
Astrakhan has for some years had a lazaret on the mouths of the Volga at seventy-five versts from its walls. The history of this establishment is curious enough. Before it was built on the site it now occupies, building had been carried on to a considerable extent at two other spots which were successively abandoned as unsuitable. It was not until much time and money had been spent, that an engineer took notice of a little island exceedingly well adapted to the purpose, and on which the lazaret was finally erected. Some years afterwards there was found in the town archives a manuscript note left by Peter the Great at his departure from Astrakhan, and in which he mentioned that very island as well suited for the site of a lazaret. A glance had enabled the tsar to perceive the importance of a locality which many engineering commissions discovered only after repeated search.
Paving is a luxury quite unknown in Astrakhan, and the streets are as sandy as the soil of the environs. Though they are almost deserted during the day, on account of the intense heat, few spectacles are more lively and picturesque than that which they present in the evening, when the whole town awakes from the somnolency into which it had been cast by a temperature of 100. Every one then hastens to enjoy the refreshing air of the twilight; people sit at the doors amusing themselves with the sight of whatever passes; business is resumed, and the shops are in a bustle; a numerous population of all races and tongues spreads rapidly along the bridges and the quays bordered with trees; the canal is covered with caïques laden with fruit and arbutus berries; elegant droshkies, caleches, and horsemen rush about in all directions, and the whole town wears a gala aspect that astonishes and captivates the traveller. He finds there collected into a focus all the picturesque items that have struck him singly elsewhere. Alongside of a Tatar dwelling stretches a great building blackened by time, and by its architecture and carvings carrying you back to the middle ages. A European shop displays its fashionable haberdashery opposite a caravanserai; the magnificent cathedral overshadows a pretty mosque with its fountain; a Moorish balcony contains a group of young European ladies who set you thinking of Paris, whilst a graceful white shadow glides mysteriously under the gallery of an old palace. All contrasts are here met together; and so it happens that in passing from one quarter to another you think you have but made a short promenade, and you have picked up a stock of observations and reminiscences belonging to all times and places. The Russians ought to be proud of a town which did not spring up yesterday, like all the others in their country, and where one is not plagued with the cold, monotonous regularity that meets you without end in every part of the empire.
The churches in Astrakhan are not built in the invariable Greek style of all the other religious buildings of Russia: they have carvings, spires, and balustrades, something to attract the gaze, and details to fix it. The cathedral, built towards the end of the seventeenth century, is a large square edifice, surmounted by five cupolas, gilded and starred with azure, and presenting a style midway between those of Asia and Europe. The interior is hung with pictures of no value in point of art, but attractive to the eye from the richness of their frames, most of which are of massive silver curiously chased. The most interesting monument in Astrakhan is a small church concealed in Peter the Great's fort. It is attributed to Ivan IV. Its architecture is purely Moorish, and it is fretted all over with details exceedingly interesting to an artist. Unfortunately, it has long been abandoned, and is now used as a warehouse.
The climate of Astrakhan is dry, and very hot. For three months the thermometer seldom falls in the day below 95. This great heat enervates both mind and body, and sufficiently accounts for the extreme sloth of the inhabitants. But in consequence of its dryness the atmosphere possesses a transparent purity that would enchant a painter, giving as it does to every object a warmth and lucidity worthy of Italy.
A very serious source of annoyance to the Astrakhaners, and still more to the foreigner, is the swarm of gnats and other insects that fill the air at certain seasons. Their pertinacious attacks baffle all precautions; it is in vain you surround yourself with gauze at night, and resign yourself to total darkness during the day, you are not the less persecuted by them, and you exhaust yourself with ineffectual efforts against an invisible enemy.
They are sinking an artesian well in the upper part of the town. They had reached, when we were there, a depth of 166 yards; but instead of water there escaped a jet of carburretted hydrogen, which had been burning for three weeks with great brilliancy.
Astrakhan now contains 146 streets, 46 squares, 8 market-places, a public garden, 11 wooden and 9 earthen bridges, 37 churches (34 of stone, 3 wooden), 2 of which are cathedrals; 15 mosques, 2 of them of stone; 3883 houses, 288 of which are of stone, the rest of wood. All narratives of travels tell of the gardens of Astrakhan, and the magnificent fruit produced in them. Unfortunately, these are pure fictions, for there are but 75 gardens or vineyards around the town, and it is only by means of irrigation with Persian wheels that they are rendered productive. All the fruit of the place, moreover, is very poor, if not decidedly bad. The grapes alone are tolerable and of very various kinds, suitable for the table, but none of them fit for making wine. As for the celebrated water-melons, they are held in very low esteem in the country, and the people of the town talk only of those of Kherson and the Crimea. It is very possible, however, that the fruit of Astrakhan may have deserved its high reputation previously to the Muscovite domination. Here, as everywhere else, the Russian population, in taking the place of the Tatars, can only have destroyed the agricultural resources of the country. The Russian townspeople being exclusively traders and shopkeepers, and never engaging in rural pursuits, the gardens almost all belong to Tatars and Armenians.
As for the government of Astrakhan, its territory is one of the most sterile in the empire. Agriculture is there wholly unproductive; in general nothing is sowed but a little maize and barley, provisions of all kinds being procured from Saratof, by way of the Volga. It is this that gives some little briskness to the navigation of that river; for besides the corn consumed by Astrakhan, and the towns dependent on its jurisdiction, Saratof and the adjoining regions send supplies also to Gourief, on the mouth of the Ural, to the army cantoned on the Terek, and even to the Transcaucasian countries. Nevertheless, there are no boats plying regularly on the Volga; it is only at the period of the fair of Nijni Novgorod, that the clumsy steamer we saw proceeding to Prince Tumene's condescends to dawdle up the stream.
The day after our arrival in Astrakhan we were taken to the house of some Hindu brahmins, where we were to be present at the evening prayers. We were received by the chief among them in the most courteous and obliging manner. The room into which he led us looked to the west, and had no other furniture than large Turkish divans, and the only thing capable of attracting our attention was a little chapel let into the wall, and which two priests were in the act of arranging for the ceremony. One of them kept his eyes constantly turned towards the west, watching with religious attention the descent of the sun's disc to the horizon. These brahmins were dressed in long brown robes, crossed in front by a white scarf, the two ends of which swept the ground. Their bronzed and antiquely moulded visages were surmounted by white muslin turbans with large folds. The leader, who was much less absorbed in his devotions than the rest, was continually smiling upon us, and waving a monstrous Persian fan that had the effect of a smart breeze. Meanwhile the sun was fast declining; at last its total disappearance was announced by the harsh sound of a conch-shell, whereupon one of the priests lighted several tapers and placed them before an image in the chapel. Another began to wash curiously-shaped vessels, filled them with water of lustration, and prostrated himself before them with great unction. A large grey stone set in the wall, appeared to be the principal object of their adorations. According to the explanation given to us by the chief priest, the soul of a celebrated saint, grown weary of the world and of men, had retired within that mystical covering; hence the stone is sacred in the eyes of the Hindus, and the mere sight of it, as they declare, is capable of working miracles. After worshipping in silence for some minutes, the chief priest began to burn perfumes, and the room was soon filled with a cloud of smoke, seen through which every object assumed a vaguer and more mysterious form, the pungent aromatic odour, combined with the heat and the strangeness of the scene before our eyes, acted so strongly upon us that we were soon unable to distinguish what was real from what was fantastic. In fact, our semi-ecstatic condition was in remarkable accordance with the moral state of our brahmins. Their religious enthusiasm soon ceased to content itself with mere prostrations. Hitherto every thing had passed in complete silence, but at a given signal two priests knelt down before the holy stone and recited a prayer, in slow and guttural accents. Another with his arms crossed on his breast, stood a few steps off from the chapel, and now and then blew upon a shrill whistle. The fourth, armed with a conch-shell, stood upon one of the divans, and added his voice to the sounds which his companions gave out with increasing loudness. Presently their eyes kindled, the muscles of their frames grew tense, the conch vibrated, a bell was rapidly agitated by the leader, and then began so strange and infernal a din, a scene so grotesque and wild, that one would really have thought the brahmins were all possessed by devils. Their attitudes and frantic gestures conveyed the idea of exorcism rather than of prayer. What we felt it would be impossible to describe; it was a mixture of surprise, curiosity, disgust, and fright. Had not fatigue compelled the actors in this sabbat to stop after ten minutes' exertion, I doubt that we should have been able to support a longer continuance of such a spectacle. One would almost be disposed to say that men take pains to worship God in the least religious manner possible. I have seen the whirling and howling dervishes at Constantinople, whose strange and frightful performances can be compared only to those of the medieval convulsionaries. The religious music of the Kalmucks is not behind-hand with these aberrations of the human mind; and here is the Hindu, worship, which seems to vie with whatever is most demented and extravagant in other religions.