next morning i was sent under escort to the village of zaramag, ten miles distant. but before starting priest khariton said to me, “i see that you have some of our copatchka in your satchel; permit me to give it to our dog, my wife will give you something fit to eat.” and the kind woman filled my bag with scones and cake and eggs.
i was sent in charge of a very old man to the ataman of zaramag. i might easily have escaped, but it seemed more interesting to remain a prisoner. outside lisri he showed me a pool of human blood on the road where there had been a fight the night before. they are evidently rather rough in this district. i felt rather safer as a prisoner than if i had been at liberty.
we passed several small villages, one of which was tli, an accumulation of broken-down towers; twelfth-century ruins patched together for the housing of the people of to-day. we were stopped here; someone called to us from the cliff. “there is a man dead,” said my escort. “we must go up here.” we climbed 217up accordingly, and found all the men of the village collected together, sitting on pine logs. two men came rapidly forward to greet us, and we stood as it were on a threshold, while these proclaimed something in a loud voice in the ossetine language. i think it meant, “in the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost. amen,” or the equivalent of that. we took off our hats and crossed ourselves, i following the example of my companion. with that someone took our things from us and put them aside, and we entered into the assembly and took seats on the logs. everyone had goats’ horns, from which they were drinking, and a vessel of that kind was brought to me full of araka, and with it hard-baked millet cake and salt. everyone seemed to be serious, and to judge by the activity of three men going to and fro with copper kettles replenishing the horns, all were drinking hard. he who had died had been a very poor old man, but if he had been twice as poor and twice as miserable in his life i am sure his death would have none the less proved an excuse for the glass.
the ataman of zaramag was present, and my guard gave him the letter, in which he was asked if he knew anything against me, or who i was. he said the letter was unintelligible to him, and that i should have to be sent back, but all the same he sent me on to zaramag to wait for him.
i waited there all day with a drunken russian clerk 218who wanted to borrow money to buy a quart of araka in order to drink my health. his wife, however, to save him the disgrace, now produced a bottle which she had previously hidden from him, and he proceeded once more to add water to the ocean.
it was yet early in the morning, but i spent the rest of the day with the man and his wife, drinking tea and listening to the confused boastings and witticisms of the drunkard. the ataman remained at the burial-feast.
in the afternoon i grew tired of waiting and said i would walk on to the next village, and that if the ataman wanted me he could send for me, and i strolled out accordingly. the clerk seemed paralysed by faith, and just sat and stared in amazement. i walked out of the village and took the road. there, however, i met the ataman, who smiled amiably and re-conducted me to the abode of the clerk.
i spent that night in an almost sumptuous apartment in the house of the ataman. first he entertained me at dinner, and we ate mutton and drank sweet ossetinsky beer from a wooden loving-cup. obviously being arrested has its advantages.
the next day i was sent to the ataman of nuzal, asking what he had to say about me. for some time i had thought i should have been returned to lisri, but the drunken clerk had intervened and advised that i be sent further. the boy who should have taken 219me went without me, however, and i was put into the charge of a carter going that way.
the road now led downhill, and i left the snow behind. the valley of zaramag, which might be called a nursery of rivers, has a wild beauty, though it came harshly upon my eyes after the soft luxuriance of the south. we followed the river ardon through the wonderful gorge of kassar. the little thread of road runs unobtrusively through ten miles of ruined cliffs. far below the little river agonises, roars and conquers. the height, the depth, the gloom, the chaos of decay and ruin—these appal the vision. it is more dreadful and uninhabitable than the gorge of dariel, a dangerous district, moreover, where man needs fear the bear and the wolf. above a glacier my guide pointed out to me specks which he said were bison.
we arrived at nuzal in the afternoon and there a comedy enacted itself. the ataman refused to receive me or to have anything to do with me, declaring he had no authority to arrest me. “what shall i do?” asked the carter. “that’s nothing to do with me,” answered the ataman. “do you hear?” said the carter to me. “the ataman won’t take you; go and beg him to take you, or else you’ll have to go back to lisri.”
“i shan’t go a single step back upon the road,” said i.
“you will be forced,” said he.
220“then i shall be forced,” i replied. “they’ll have to carry me.”
“but what shall i do?” asked the carter. “i’m going to ardon on business. i can’t take you back.”
no one would have anything to do with the poor man. a russian visiting doctor came up and talked to me, and when he heard of the dilemma he was like to die of laughter. the idea that the ataman of a remote village should have arrested a european tourist tickled him immensely. he promised to write my story in the russian newspapers. “let him go,” said he; “and as for that,” pointing to the letter, “throw it away.”
“i must have a receipt,” said the carter.
“i’ll give you one,” said i.
the upshot was, however, that i agreed to go a stage further, to misure, where there is a silver factory and a telephone to vladikavkaz. it was a belgian factory, and m. devet was a very nice man. i agreed to that, but at misure the telephone was out of order, and beyond drinking a bottle of wine between us we gained no comfort there. i counted myself free really, for certainly the carter was without authority, but it was interesting to see what would happen next, and i forebore to escape. the man cursed his stars for having taken me, but he was obsessed by a sense of duty. he would take me on to alagir and hand me over to the pristav there. to alagir we went accordingly. en 221route, however, we slept in a little shop by the wayside, and it was not till next morning that we passed through the gorge of ardon with its hot sulphur springs, and came to the large settlement on the steppes known as alagir.
at the pristav’s office we had to wait five hours, and i was assured i should be liberated, but then i found they dared not release me. i had to go to ardon, fifteen miles distant.
as i was leaving alagir there was a strange incident. a well-dressed man, whom i mistook for a member of the russian secret police, came up to me, and tried to get me to say things against the russian government and my treatment. “you can speak to me as to a mate,” said he. “i also am a politikan. what happened to you? you are exhausted. never mind. bear up.” he spoke a few words aside to my guard, and then went on again. “i have arranged,” said he. “you won’t go just yet. you must come along with me and have a meal, then i will take both of you in a cart, and we can have a chat.” i felt suspicious and refused.
meanwhile two young men came up and entered into conversation with him, and they asked me my story. i told them, and one said, “we represent the society for the help of educated ossetines in distress; we beg you to receive our help.” then one gave me five separate ten-copeck pieces and a slip of paper with 222his address, saying, “if you are in difficulty write to me. you will need money before you are released—to this little you are welcome.”
again i refused and thanked them profusely. then the first man said he must have offended me. i insisted that he hadn’t, and we parted. i have every reason to believe that they were very honest and good people, though their manner was not very assuring. my guard, who had patiently waited, now went on and i followed.
from ardon i was sent to a place called ard-garon, where i spent the night at the house of a hospitable ossetine. i arrived in the evening, and my host took me out for a walk on the steppes to what he called a “mayovka,” so called because it was held in the month of may. it was an evening picnic of about fifty ossetine men. there were no women. they had buckets of araka and baskets of mutton and bread. i politely partook of their viands.
from ard-garon i was exported to gizel, where my good fortune seemed to suffer eclipse. i was thrust, in spite of my protests, into the village gaol, there to exist from three in the afternoon till eight next morning. i had had nothing to eat all day and nothing was obtainable here. only, in answer to my complaint, the gaoler put in a pail of dirty water that i might drink if i wanted to.
at ardon an official had said to me, “we can’t 223keep you here because we’ve nowhere to put you. you wouldn’t like to lie in prison, would you? have they prisons in england?... clean ones, i suppose. but ours are dirty. would you like to see ours?” he burst into a guffaw of laughter. but the ataman said to him, “no, no, you needn’t go out of your way to do that.”
i suppose the place was ugly. i did not guess that on the succeeding night i should be for the first time in a russian gaol.
it was a verminous cell, with holes in the rotten flooring and no glass in the barred windows. the door was cased in iron; the walls hung in tatters of broken plaster. there were no seats, but at one end some planks served for a bed. my companions were an ossetine and an ingoosh, both charged with stealing, and a madman, who was, i understood, a regular tenant of the den. i had obviously nothing to do with these people and didn’t belong to their class. they were as selfish as possible, and i suppose i should have had a bad night but for the fact that i was so worn out. i huddled myself together on the planks and slept. at vladikavkaz next day, the chief of police inspected my passport, and bade me take my liberty and “live with god.”
