Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

mustn't expect this sort of thing all the way to Khiva. After you get fairly out on the steppes beyond the Ural, you'll have to carry all your own food and water along with you, and go forty versts or more from one well to another, and jolt along all day on the back of a camel, and sleep on the ground with a rug over you; and if you ever come back alive, it'll be something to talk about. Good-bye-pleasant journey!"

I inwardly wonder why on earth one's friends always comfort one, at the outset of a journey, with the rehearsal of all possible accidents which may occur en route. But there is no time to moralise; the driver shakes his reins, the conductor performs a solo on his horn that might arouse the seven sleepers of Ephesus

"The stones do rattle underneath,

As if Tiflis were mad❞—

and away we go.

Certainly Dr Johnson had some reason on his side when he placed the acmé of human enjoyment in being whirled along by a post-chaise. Flying at full speed over a splendid military road, with the fresh mountain breeze stirring my blood like the breath of life, the rich summer blue of the sky overhead, and the glorious panorama of the Central Caucasus outspread on every side as far as the eye can reach, I have nothing left to desire. And with every hour the surrounding scenery becomes more and more magnificent. Smooth sloping hillsides at first, crested with waving trees and dappled with flocks of goats; then bolder and bleaker ridges,

rising ever higher, and steeper, and darker, with here and there the skeleton of some ancient Georgian castle hanging, shadow-like, upon the very brink of a black scowling precipice. Then, towards nightfall, a great amphitheatre of green plain, bulwarked by purple mountains, through the passes of which the slanting sunlight streams in a sea of glory; and with the last gleam of daylight, we plunge among the hills once more.

Night comes on, and my conductor-who, despite his seasoned look, is neither physically nor morally a Hercules of twelve labours-begins to drop very intelligible hints about the propriety of halting till morning at the station which we have just reached. But the vision of a late arrival and a lost steamer goad me like Io's gadfly, and I give orders, in the tone of Cæsar's "Jacta est alea," for fresh horses, and an instant departure. However, Fate ordains otherwise. The words are hardly spoken, when the gleam of a passing lantern flashes upon a moustached face and military cap, while a familiar voice shouts through the darkness

"Is that you, David Stepanovitch ?* I thought nobody else could be so mad as to think of going on with this sky. Just look at it, and see! You had better come in and have some tea with me, instead of killing yourself for nothing."

I look up, and cannot but own that he is right. The bright southern moonlight has vanished in a huge mass of inky cloud, while the deadly stillness of the whole

* The customary address in Russia, even from a servant, is by one's own name and that of one's father.

atmosphere is ominous of coming evil. While I am still hesitating, my impatient conductor strikes in on the side of his new ally.

66

'Ach, David Stepanovitch! can't you listen to reason? The gentleman's right; it would be a sin to think of it in such weather. Get in quick, before it begins."

I allow myself to be hurried into the post-house, and not a whit too soon. We are barely inside, when suddenly everything becomes bright as at noonday; the quaint little cross-beamed room, the knives and glasses on the table, the white faces of the inmates, the picture of the saint in the farther corner, the dim waste of mountains outside, are all terribly distinct for one moment, and then blotted out again. Then comes a clap of thunder that seems to split the very sky, and instantly the whole fury of the storm breaks loose. The wind howls and shrieks, and shakes the strong timbers till they groan, and the heavy bullets of rain come. rattling upon the roof, and the thunder roars and bangs overhead, and flash after flash lights up the pouring sky and the tossing forest, only to plunge them into deeper darkness. And then, on a sudden, the uproar ceases, and the clouds roll away, and the full moon breaks out once more, and we harness our horses, and go forward again, through miry roads and dripping forests, while the mountain torrents, swollen by the rain, roar hoarsely far away below.

And so the night wears on, and we mount ever higher and higher, gradually leaving all trace of vegetation

behind, and beginning to wind among heaped masses of black, broken rock, and boundless fields of unmelting snow, which look doubly spectral under the cold moonlight. Despite the piercing cold and the torment of my "secret belt," which (assume what position I will) seems to have a sharp corner for every emergency, I sleep for about an hour and a half as soundly as a country policeman on duty, and wake to find myself on the summit of the pass, very cold, very wet, very sore, very hungry, and very ill-tempered.

Everyone has doubtless had experience of that inevitable crisis in a rough night journey, when one's numerous discomforts culminate in a sense of intolerable wrong-when the mere fact of one's being there at all becomes a direct personal injury, and one is ready to fall foul of the first living being who may present himself, as the undoubted cause of it all. But when we have warmed ourselves in the snug little post-house, and snatched a hasty meal, even my much-enduring conductor appears to think that there is still something worth living for, and lights his pipe with an air of stolid contentment, while I scramble on a huge mass of fallen rock, and enjoy at my leisure one of the grandest views which I have ever seen.

My stand-point is the crown of the great central ridge which forms the back-bone of the Caucasus, looking down into Europe on one side and Asia on the other. Far down the incline, the endless curves of the road by which we have ascended melt into the sea of mist below. All around me, the mountain-side is rent by

yawning rifts, marking the fall of the huge misshapen boulders which lie scattered on every side, as upon the battle-ground of the Titans. At my very feet yawns a mighty gulf of several hundred feet, from the misty depths of which comes booming up the dull roar of an unseen waterfall; while beyond it, vast masses of black broken rock thrust themselves up against the clear morning sky, blotting it as with a rising thundercloud. And high over all, with its great white pyramid shining like tried silver in the splendour of the sunrise, towers the glorious Kazbek, lifting itself heavenward in silent, eternal prayer.

But this is no time for rhapsodising; we have still several stages to Vladikavkaz (the half-way house from Tiflis to Petrovsk), and the sooner we are off the better. However, from this point it is all down hill, and our creeping pace is now exchanged for a brisk trot, which disposes of the two next stages in gallant style. I already imagine myself at Vladikavkaz, and am just thinking what I shall order for dinner, when, half way down a steep incline, with a sheer wall of rock on one side and a precipice on the other, the horses suddenly bolt; and my vehicle, after balancing irresolutely for a few seconds, decides for the rock, and goes over against it with a tremendous crash, pitching the conductor one way and the driver another, crippling one of the horses, and confounding things in general. However, these little accidents go for nothing in Russia. The driver binds up his damaged wrist, the conductor mops the blood from his face, and coolly trudges back to the

« AnteriorContinuar »