We passed the night near the sources in the midst of a total solitude, and early next morning we retraced our steps, and proceeded towards the Kouma, distant about seventy-five versts; the men were all mounted again on their camels, and seemed well pleased to have no more pedestrian labours in prospect; for with all their willingness, they had not been able to accustom their limbs to that sort of service. We encamped for two nights successively among Kalmucks, for the steppes grew less lonely as we departed from our first course. These good people heard the story of our journey through their plains with eager curiosity. As soon as supper was over they squatted themselves round our kibitka, lending a religious attention to the most improbable tales, for our men, who took upon them the office of historiographers, paid very little respect to truth in their compositions. One of our camel-drivers, especially, had been endowed by Heaven with an imagination of extraordinary fecundity. It was his peculiar office to amuse the whole escort during the bivouac, and when he had to do with a new audience, his captivating eloquence attained the utmost limits of possibility, enchanting even those who heard him every day.
The last encampment in which we passed the night was one of the most considerable we had seen up to that time. The country, indeed, had entirely changed its aspect; we had left the dreary sands behind us, with the Caspian and the Manitch. An abundant vegetation, and undulations of the ground that became more and more decided as we proceeded, gladdened the sight, and accounted for the numerous encampments we discovered in all directions. Herds of horses, camels, and oxen spotted all the surface of the steppe, and bespoke the wealth of the hordes to which they belonged. We were not in the least molested by the latter. These good Kalmucks were delighted to receive us in their tents, and never attempted to steal the least thing from us. Their desires and their wants are so very limited! To tame a wild horse, to roam from steppe to steppe on their camels, to smoke and drink koumis, to shut themselves up in winter in the midst of ashes and smoke, and to addict themselves to the superstitious practices of a religion they cannot understand,—such is the whole sum of their lives.
I had the curiosity frequently to enter their kibitkas, but I never saw in any of them the dirt I had been told of. The Russian kates are infinitely more untidy and squalid that the interiors of these tents. Among other visits we made one to the wife of a subaltern chief, and as she had been warned of our coming, she was dressed in her best finery. She sat with her legs tucked under her on a piece of felt, with a child before her, and a servant-woman motionless at her side. She was delighted to receive us, and thanked us with much cordiality. We complimented her on the neatness and good order of her tent, at which she seem gratified in the highest degree.
We remarked with surprise that there was not one priest in all the camps we passed through, but we afterwards learned that they were all gone northwards to the Sarpa, where there were much finer pastures, and where one was not tormented by the myriads of gnats that abound in those countries in autumn. We ourselves had much to endure from those terrible insects all the way to Vladimirofka, and we were often so annoyed by them as to wish ourselves back among the sands of the Manitch.
Even if the want of water had not put a stop to our journey, the state of our provisions was such that I hardly know what we could have done. Our bacon, rice, coffee, and biscuits had long disappeared; we had nothing left but a small stock of tea and sugar, and for the rest we were dependent on the hawk, which did wonders daily in supplying the deficiencies of our commissariat. Our last repast under the tent consisted only of game cooked in all sorts of ways. Anthony, who to his functions as dragoman, added those of butler, cook, and scullion, put forth all his powers on that occasion: but we had been surfeited with game; we had lived upon it so long that the sight of a wild goose was enough to give us a fit of indigestion. It was, therefore, with exceeding joy that on reaching the house of an inspector of Kalmucks, we found ourselves seated at a table covered with vegetables and pastry.
The house of that officer (a very agreeable young Russian who spoke Kalmuck like a native) was situated at a little distance from the Kouma in a magnificent meadow. For a long while we had beheld no such landscape, and though we were still on the verge of the desert, that little white house with green window blinds, and the two or three handsome trees around it, completely changed the physiognomy of the country in our eyes.
The inspector gave us a good deal of information respecting the proprietor of Vladimirofka, of whom we had already heard at Astrakhan, and he offered to accompany us to the establishment, which was barely ten versts distant. It was there we proposed to rest and recruit ourselves after the fatigues of our journey, and to take a final leave of our escort.
CHAPTER XXIV.
REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE KALMUCKS.