It was not until the August of 1878, three years after the events recorded in my last chapter, that a passage in a recently published book on the Caucasus drew my attention again to my old hunting grounds. It was Mr. Freshfield in this work (‘The Frosty Caucasus’) who wrote that in all his travels in the Caucasian mountains he had seen little more game than a couple of tame bears in a Tscherkess village.

This struck me as strange, and as I was at that time meditating a sporting tour in some as yet unchosen locality, I decided to go to the Caucasus for myself, and test its capacities to the utmost of my ability as hunting ground for large game. Since my return from Asia I have seen Devouasseux, Mr. Freshfield’s guide, who tells me that the author was too intent on his favourite pursuit of mountain-climbing to have much time for looking for game. And indeed the book itself leads one to infer this. The climbing of almost impracticable mountains and the pursuit of great game could not be combined by any one. To achieve success in either pursuit is enough for most men.

After passing a week in preparing my outfit, which was by no means a formidable one, I was ready to start. An ‘express rifle,’ a double-barrel smoothbore (C. F. No. 12), fitted with metal cartridge-cases, which when inserted converted the gun into a muzzle-loader, a suit of moleskin, one of Rouch’s photographic apparatuses, and a pair of Dean’s field boots, were the chief items in my outfit. The first three articles are indispensable, the other two absolutely useless, as I was unable to work the one, and had but little occasion to test the other. Besides, I believe Mr. Dean’s boots are not much good without the dubbin supplied with them, and this my servant promptly lost. No doubt properly used with this, they are as excellent as their many advocates believe them to be.

The most difficult thing to get was a really good map of the Caucasus, containing the names of the principal small streams and villages. This I afterwards secured in Russia under the name of ‘Map of the Caucasian Isthmus,’ by Professor Dr. Karl Koch (‘Karte von dem Kaukasischen Isthmus,’ Berlin, 1850). In this map most of the important villages are marked, and the names are sufficiently like those given them by their inhabitants to enable a stranger to recognise them.

The journey from St. Katherine’s Docks to Odessa, vi Vienna, has nothing in it worthy of record. Most men who travel nowadays have seen as much of it as they care to. For my own part, having made the journey several times, I think the things that have made most impression on my mind are the gradual improvement in the railway carriages, from the time you leave our English abominations until the time you find yourself surrounded with at least all the necessary conveniences of life on the last stage to Odessa; the gradual diminution in pace, until some little distance from your journey’s end it amounts to little more than a crawl; the sudden clearing and brightening of the atmosphere once you have crossed the channel; the predominance of blue in all the dresses of the French peasant; the absence of fences to make a run interesting, if runs took place in this land of vulpecides; the disappearance of the rook, and the appearance of his grey-backed congener the hooded crow in his place; the multitude of magpies, and the loquaciousness of one’s travelling companions. I am afraid my readers, if I have any, will at once put me down as unobservant, but it may only be that first impressions are lost if the same journey is often repeated.

Arrived at Odessa, my old chief and kind friend, Mr. George Stanley, Her Majesty’s Consul-General there, received me with great kindness, and to him and Mr. Mitchell I am indebted for much valuable information and many acts of attention. During the few days I stayed at Odessa I had one very excellent day’s snipe-shooting with Mr. Stanley on the Dnieper, during which we bagged fifty-six snipe in an hour between us. Of these, I am in honesty bound to admit, that Mr. Stanley, whose hand had not forgotten the cunning acquired in Egypt, bagged by far the larger share.

On our way home we had a specimen of the driving of Russian yemstchiks, which would have considerably lowered them probably in the esteem of their ardent admirer Sir Robert Peel. Our fellow seemed a little the worse for vodka, and as soon as we got away from the house at which we had been staying, we had proof that his looks did not belie him. The bracing air roused his spirits; his horses were ‘little doves’ and ‘sons of dogs’ in the same breath, his whip whirled about, and tossing their heads in the air, the team (in which there were two young ones) took the bit in their teeth, and went away straight across the steppe, over gullies, with a bump that would have smashed any springs had there been any, down slopes at a rate that took your breath away, and all the while the yemstchik laughing and swearing, and not minding one bit. Two of his crimson velvet cushions dropped off into darkness behind him, and this probably sobered him. At last we got on to the track, and though the pace was still violent, we were comparatively safe here. Once we collided with a droshky, the driver of which was unusually moderate in his oaths at the accident, and passed on quickly and disappeared. We discovered afterwards that a valuable piece of the harness of our own troika had been lost, carried away by the droshky in the collision probably, seeing which the droshky man had held his tongue, and made off with his prize.

But our troubles were not yet over. As we neared Odessa there was a sharp turn in the track. As we turned I saw our danger, but there was no time to avert it; and in the twinkling of an eye we charged a telegraph post. The tall thin post passing between our off leader and the shaft horse, cut clean through every atom of harness, and set the young one free. For a moment he stood stunned and trembling, and then with a snort betook himself off into the darkness as fast as legs could carry him. This finally restored our driver to a state of most solemn sobriety, and for the rest of our journey we were conveyed at a safe and moderate pace by the remaining two horses. The fellow was lucky enough to recover his horse next day, but not without considerable trouble and expense. I believe he and two or three hired comrades spent the night on the steppe looking for the stray horse.

After this I bade adieu to my kind friends in Odessa, receiving as a last kindness from Mr. Stanley an introduction to Prince Vorontzoff, who, luckily for me, happened to be travelling by the boat in which I had embarked. This introduction stood me in good stead, as his Highness, who speaks English like an Englishman, gave me letters of introduction at Tiflis, by exhibiting the address and external signature of which I was able to allay the suspicions of the Cossacks on the Black Sea, and otherwise help myself. I owe Prince Vorontzoff many thanks for his ready kindness to a stranger, and repeat them with the same sincerity with which I tendered them when he left the boat for his lovely place at Aloupka.

Aloupka is to my mind the finest castle in Russia, in the most picturesque position. It is a strange mixture of the half fortress, half castle, of early feudal times, Moorish magnificence, Russian luxury, and English comfort. In the distance it looks massive and glorious, with magnificent timber, gardens, and vineyards stretching down to the sea at its feet, the grey summit of AiË Petri towering over it from behind, and away to the right the Bear Mountain, couched with his head on his paws, looking ever seaward.

Yalta itself is the Eden of Russia perhaps, but it is an Eden in which most of the inhabitants are invalids, all the hotels infamously exorbitant in their charges; and life, unless one is addicted to the process of the grape cure, excessively monotonous. The palace of Livadia is beautiful, but would, I think, scarcely please ordinary English taste as much as the magnificent foliage (artificially arranged) at Orianda (the Grand Duke Constantine’s seat), or the stately beauty of Aloupka. The mountains round Yalta and as far as Theodosia are extremely fine, and I know of few things more beautiful than some of the views to be obtained from their pine-clad sides. I believe a few roe and chamois are to be found on them, but these are at least partially preserved.

Arrived at Kertch I was at home again, and soon in my old room at the consulate. A right merry time we had of it, and, as was natural, devoted a couple of days to our old friend Miskitchee, the lake that ‘best of all lakes the fowler loves,’ on these Crimean steppes.

Miskitchee is the Tartar name for a village some sixty versts from Kertch: the lake, which adjoins the village, shares with the latter its name. The lake is a piece of shallow water some two miles long by half a mile broad, and nowhere deeper than up to a man’s waist. It is for the most part covered with the high reed called here ‘kamish,’ and on the mud banks round its edges and in the little lagoons within the reeds myriads of wild-fowl play by day, and chatter and feed all night. Here have I had many a good day’s wild-fowling, passed many a merry night, and had at least one adventure, which, as far as I remember, was somewhat in this wise: I had been staying at the house of the chief farmer in the village, a Greek or Armenian—I forget which—for some few days, on a shooting expedition. One morning, about six o’clock, I was tramping over some damp steppeland, where pools were frequent, and snipe should have been more so, but were not. After an hour spent in looking for something to shoot, I had almost resolved to be off again to my favourite lake, when I heard a voice calling to me in Russian. Looking up I saw a Tartar, rather a smart one too, in a fawn-coloured robe and the inevitable sheepskin hat, standing upright in a big flat cart, with a troika of capital horses before him. On coming closer I found he was inviting me to take a seat in his cart, assuring me that he, too, was a sportsman, and had to drive over a part of the steppe that morning where game abounded. Having no gun with him, he would show me where sport might be had if I liked. However, roubles in those days were rare with me, and I feared that if I accepted the lift I should have to pay a considerable fare, so I declined as graciously as possible. My friend persisted, and at last I told him frankly that if he gave me a passage to these happy hunting grounds of which he spoke it would have to be a free one, and include a return before nightfall. He consented at once, so without more ado I got into his cart, and drove off with him.

After a verst or two I began to find my friend was no ‘blagueur,’ for in a very short time we had bagged several hares and a few quail. His sight was the most marvellous I ever met with. Standing up in his cart, as he drove rapidly over the uplands, he would from time to time pull up suddenly, exclaiming, ‘Vot zeits!’—Lo, a hare! at the same time pointing to some distant object on the ploughed land or prairie. It was no good my looking, for I could discern nothing, so that I had to dismount and simply trudge for one or two hundred yards in the direction he indicated, until sure enough, from under my very feet, the hare started, until then utterly undiscernible to me.

And now the object of his morning drive was revealed to me. On a hillside near us was a mighty flock of sheep, tended by a few ragged Tartar lads and one grey-headed shepherd, with the usual retinue of huge mongrel sheepdogs—brutes who go for you on every opportunity. Hailing the old shepherd, a bargain was soon struck, and we dismounted to choose our sheep. My friend plunged in among them, and after regarding many with the eye of a profound connoisseur, chose four. To choose them was easy, to secure them seemed less so. Kicking off his shoes and rolling up his long loose sleeves, the purchaser tried to approach his purchase. The more he advanced the more rapidly the sheep retired, trying in vain to lose himself amongst his comrades or substitute another in his place. But the Tartar was not to be done, and in a quarter of an hour three were secured, caught by the hind leg, jerked over on their back, all four legs tied together, and bundled into the cart. Ambitious of imitating my friend, I too took off my boots, and made frantic efforts to collar an innocent-looking beast. After an enormous waste of time I did get hold of a leg of mutton, though not, I believe, the right one. The jerk was neatly given, but alas! not by the right creature. In a moment I was sprawling, and in another the whole flock was romping over my breathless body. How I extricated myself I know not, but when I did I sat me down, feeling sheepish in more ways than one, and resumed my boots a wiser, though a sadder man.

Having got our whole cargo on board, we set off for the nearest Tartar village, killing on the way another hare. By the way, whenever I killed anything, my guide insisted on cutting its throat and breaking its legs, a superstitious observance, I have since heard, common to all Mahometans. Arrived at the village, an old man (the moollah I think he was) climbed to the top of a low hovel in the middle of the straggling main street (if streets there are in Tartar ‘aouls’), and shouted himself hoarse in the Tartar tongue. What he said I knew not then, but from subsequent events I believe it was to the effect that the good butcher, Lotso, had brought with him five fat sheep, all or any of which he was prepared then and there to convert into mutton, if sufficient customers were forthcoming. Any one who wanted mutton, to raise his hand. After a great deal of talking all by himself, the moollah came down from his perch, and a crowd forming round him, a tremendous row ensued. It looked like being a free fight, but it was soon over, and perhaps the Tartar housekeepers may take to themselves the credit of settling on the joint for the day sooner than their English representatives at home.

The purchases being settled, a sheep was selected from the cart, and carried to a stone trench hard-by, its throat cut, and the whole operation of skinning and dismembering completed in a very few minutes. Meanwhile a number of gaunt curs, drawn by the smell of blood, had crowded round, and so hardy were they that it was all a dozen Tartars could do, whirling their knouts round the butcher as the whips do when the huntsman is breaking up his fox, to keep the brutes at bay. Then the meat was parcelled out, the money paid, cash down, the entrails, tied up in the skin (butcher’s perquisites), thrown back into the cart, and after a drink of sour cream at the dirty brown hands of a Tartar princess, we were on our way for the next village, to repeat the same process.

And now all our sheep having been slaughtered and sold, the gloaming came on, and with it a hunger on my part that made me anxious to get back to my quarters at the friendly Armenian’s. Turning to the Tartar, I suggested our return, when he coolly informed me that I had better make up my mind to pass the night at his house at J——, naming a village of some half-dozen houses, at which an execrable murder had occurred some months previously. It may have been the memory of this, or it may have been his ghastly handiness with the butcher’s knife, or perhaps the thought of my cosy quarters at Miskitchee, that made me resolve that go to that place I would not. Accordingly I reminded him of his promise. All the satisfaction I could get was that if I wanted to go back I must walk. Did I know in which direction Miskitchee lay? Yes, out yonder, over that low line of hills. A grim laugh, and the assurance that Miskitchee was in an exactly opposite direction, increased my suspicions of my quondam friend, as I knew by certain landmarks that he must be lying. A moment’s consideration showed me that a walk at this hour, even supposing I did not lose my way, would end probably in a night on the steppe, at the mercy of this man or any other who chose to stalk me, and surprise me in the dark or in my sleep, to say nothing of the absolute necessity in case of my leaving the cart of abandoning my game. So I changed my tactics. He had no fire-arms, and sat on the edge of the cart. I had my gun, and sat behind in the body of it. Mustering what little Russian I knew, I let him understand that I held him to his promise; that I had heard of J—— and its evil reputation, and didn’t mean to go there; that I knew the track now on our right was the home track; and that, if he refused to take it, I would blow him off his cart with a charge of No. 5. This was a rough argument, and he seemed nonplussed. He tried to argue me into going another way; he tried to laugh me out of my suspicions—he even began to bully. I simply watched him, repeated my proposals, and sat still. Meanwhile the horses were pulled up. Then my friend tried to slip off his seat, and so get out of his awkward position in front of my gun’s muzzle. I cocked my gun with a click, and brought it in a line with his back. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then with a curse he took the right road at a sulky pace.

All that drive I never took my eyes off him, and never let go my gun. Gradually he seemed to become better tempered, and when we got within half a mile of Miskitchee he turned and spoke to me, to assure me that further than that nothing would induce him to drive me.

Satisfied now that I could get home in safety, I got down, taking a couple of hares and some birds with me, leaving the rest for the Tartar, and walked off to Miskitchee, thankful to have got off so well. On my way back I thought I had probably been over suspicious, and made a fool of myself. However, on my arrival, I found I had been searched for all day, and great anxiety had been felt for me. It seems my butcher was of more professions than one, being indeed the most notorious horse-stealer on these steppes. He had camped near the village the night before, and made several inquiries about me, having seen me returning from shooting that night. He had also expressed great admiration for my gun, a rather handsome breech-loader. This, together with the fact that the butcher, one of my host’s best horses, and myself had all disappeared simultaneously next morning, accounted for the anxiety felt, as well as for the butcher’s objection to return to the village that night.

Such was one of the memories Miskitchee called up in my mind. But on this my last visit I saw little to remind me of my adventure. The Armenian had, I believe, gone, and the whole village looked asleep in the sunshine as we passed it by: a straggling group of one-storied hovels, with the sunlight glinting on rows of yellow gourds on the thatch; a dark, good-looking Tartar girl in a scarlet cap and many ringlets, much bespangled with small gilt coins, standing in a doorway, round which there was some sort of an enclosure. At another cottage door, with his legs in the mud of the main street and his quarters on the somewhat drier mud of his dining-room floor, lounged, cigarette in mouth, a pink-shirted Russian moujik. Inside the hovel, if we had had time to look, we should probably have seen a heap of bedclothes between the roof and the top of the oven; this would be the baboushka’s (grandmother’s) bed. A wooden bedstead with more disarranged clothes on the floor; here the rest of the family, mother and father and brats, all sleep; a filthy, open fire-place, in one corner; a ragged woman, of ape-like propensities, combing a dirty child in another; and on the floor two more half-naked brats, fighting over the family loaf of black bread, from which they are in vain endeavouring to hammer a morsel with the back of an axe. From a blackened greasy beam overhead, adorned with a few strings of onions and withered apples, a dim light shines down upon the whole, proceeding from a tin of mutton fat, which makes the whole interior as unsavoury as it is ugly.

Gladly, then, we left the village behind us, and drawing up our droshkies under the lee of a high natural embankment beside the lake, prepared to pass the night there. A hole was dug in the earth and a subterranean fire made to cook over. Our bourkas stretched over the droshky made a kind of refuge between the wheels, into which we could crawl and sleep in case of rain.

These and other little preparations having been at least started, we began our shooting. Two guns went round the lake, one on either side; one worthy sportsman might have been seen arraying himself in Mr. Cording’s famous hose; another, simpler and perhaps wiser, divesting himself of all the trammels which civilisation has thrown round the lower limbs of bipeds. The wading party, Cording’s follower, and ‘the unadorned,’ made through the shallow lake for the reed beds in the centre; here carefully concealed to reap the benefit of the stalking party on either shore. The fifth gunner, a tall thin German from Riga, the very best of good fellows, with the longest of legs, had taken to himself a large biscuit-tin, the which he had deposited on a small sand-bank in the middle of the lake. Seated on this, in his trim attire, which no campaigning could ever make less natty, with long limbs overspreading all the surrounding country, our friend B. awaited the dodgy duck. The men in the reeds had the best of it, though the shooting was hardest there, and as we had no retrievers we never got a quarter of the birds we killed. The isolated gentleman on the biscuit-tin got a few long shots, and as his birds all fell in open water, got most of what he killed. But, alas, when he attempted to rise to gather his birds, he was distinctly seen to stick. Vain were his efforts to rise erect. The misguided biscuit-tin had sunk into the treacherous mud bank, slowly but surely; the part next upon it had followed, and the pride of Kertch had apparently taken root in the wastes of Miskitchee. However, fate was kind, and by the united efforts of his friends he was rescued from his ignominious position.

The shore shooters came back tired but happy, though their bag of one cormorant, several red-legged gulls, and a large variety of waders, with a few duck, was rather ornamental than useful. The man of the biscuit-tin and ‘the unadorned’ contributed some mallards, teal, and a couple of pintail, with a few snipe; and after counting out the bag, all drew round the fire to imbibe the cheering ‘tchai’ (tea). But why this gap? Our friend in waders is still absent, and yell loud as we like we get no response from the little reedy island in which he was last seen. For half an hour we waited, and then we heard a gun fired right in the middle of the swamp. Again we shouted and fired, and this time got an answer, but it was not until the sky grew dark and the smoke from our fire could be plainly seen against it, that our friend found his way out of the maze of reeds in which he had been wandering round and round for nearly a couple of hours.

After our pipes had been lighted, the rain came down in torrents, forcing us all to creep under the droshky, and a very close fit we found it. However, by curling B.’s legs three or four times round his waist, we did manage it, and lay there smoking and listening to the old German jÄger’s ghost stories, culled from the forests of Germany and the plains of Asia, until far into the night. And never had a teller of weird legends fitter accompaniments than the million voices of the lake at our feet and the ceaseless pelting and buffeting of the storm without.

One more shot at the duck in the morning, and then we turned homewards. My time I felt was getting short, and it was high time that I sailed for the Black Sea coast, although I was nothing loth to have delayed these two weeks, feeling that now I was tolerably certain to escape the Circassian fever which is so prevalent in early autumn.