We passed fifteen well-spent days in Astrakhan. Notwithstanding the heat, we were running about from morning till night, escorted by an aide-de-camp, whom his excellency had assigned to us as cicerone. This very obliging officer being perfectly well acquainted with the country, and being incessantly on the look-out for any thing that could interest us, it came to pass that in eight days we had a much better knowledge of the town than the governor himself. One thing alone escaped our search, namely, one or two families of Parsees, who still inhabit Astrakhan, but whom our guide could not succeed in ferreting out. It was in vain he hunted about and questioned every body; no one could give him any precise information on the subject. Soirées, cavalcades, numerous dinners, and above all, a pleasing intimacy with many agreeable families, filled up our tourist existence in the most charming manner, and made us postpone as long as possible a departure, which was to snap asunder such pleasing social ties.
It would be impossible to surpass the active kindness shown us by the governor and all the best society of Astrakhan. During our whole stay the governor put his caleche at our disposal, and was imitated in this by many other persons. But notwithstanding all these temptations to prolong our abode, we were obliged at last to set in earnest about arrangements for our journey across the Kalmuck steppes. Our first care was to provide all that was indispensable to prevent our dying of hunger on the way. An expedition of this kind is like a long sea voyage; the previous cares are the same; one must enter into the same sort of details as the sailor who is bound for a distant shore.
We laid in a great stock of biscuits, rice, oil, candles, dry fruit, tea, coffee, and sugar, and sent them forward with our escort to Houidouk, a post station near the Caspian, where my husband was to begin his series of levels.
This escort, consisting of ten camels with their drivers and some Cossacks fully armed, had been selected by the governor and M. Fadiew, with a carefulness that proved how much they were both concerned for our safety. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for all the kindness they showed us on this occasion; their anxiety about the result of so hazardous a journey betrayed itself by numberless precautions and recommendations, which might have had some influence on our determination if it had not been irrevocably fixed.
The governor chose from among his best officers, a Tatar prince to command our escort. This young man, who was an excellent sportsman, had a hawk, from which he was inseparable, and to this circumstance was owing the orders he received to accompany us. General Timirasif, always mindful of the privations that awaited us, thought he could not do better than furnish us with so clever a purveyor; who, indeed, proved to be of immense assistance to us. When he presented the officer to us, with his hawk on his fist, his face beamed with satisfaction. "Now," he said, laughing, "my conscience is at ease; here I give you a brave soldier for your champion, and a travelling companion, who will not let you be starved to death in the wilderness."
Orders were sent forward in advance, along all the line we were to traverse as far as Haidouk, that we should be supplied with horses at every station without delay.
CHAPTER XXI.
COMMERCIAL POSITION OF ASTRAKHAN—ITS IMPORTANCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES—ITS LOSS OF THE OVERLAND TRADE FROM INDIA—COMMERCIAL STATISTICS—FISHERIES OF THE CASPIAN—CHANGE OF THE MONETARY SYSTEM IN RUSSIA—BAD STATE OF THE FINANCES—RUSSIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY.
There is no city, perhaps, of eastern Europe, which has played a more important part than Astrakhan in the commercial relations between Europe and Asia. Situated at the lower extremity of the largest navigable river of Europe, it communicates on the one side by the Caspian with Turcomania and the northern regions of Persia; on the other side, by means of the Volga and the Don, it is in direct intercourse with the central provinces of the Muscovite empire, and the whole coast of the Black Sea. With such facilities for traffic, Astrakhan would naturally be one of the chief points of transit for Indian goods during the middle ages, when the passage by the Cape of Good Hope was unknown, and European navigators had not yet appeared in the Persian Gulf. It was towards the middle of the thirteenth century, after the foundation of the Kaptshak empire, and of the kingdom of Little Tartary, that the Caspian Sea became a highway for the Indian trade, with which, in still earlier times, the Petchenegues, the predecessors of the Tatars in the Tauris, appear not to have been altogether unacquainted. Astrakhan on one side, and Soldaïa on the Black Sea on the other, became the two great maritime places of the Tatars, and exchanged between them the merchandise of Europe and Asia, by means of the caravans of the Kouban and the Volga.[20] From Soldaïa the Indian goods were next conveyed to Constantinople, where they were sold either for the provinces of the empire, or to foreigners trading in that capital. Afterwards, about 1280, when the Genoese took possession of the coasts of the Tauris, Soldaïa lost its commercial importance, and the splendid colony of Caffa became the centre of all the Asiatic commerce. Mercantile relations with India assumed fresh activity at that period, particularly when, after the dissolution of the empire of the Kaptshak, in the reign of Hadji Devlet Cherii, the Genoese became masters of Tana, on the Don. The whole trade in spices, aromatic and medicinal drugs, perfumes, silks, and other productions of the East in request in Europe, fell thus into the hands of those intrepid Italian speculators, whose connexions by way of the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, and the caravans, extended as far as the Indies.