William Marshal, "The Country of Shamyl" (1861)

In 1861, William Marshal traveled across the Middle East, reaching into the Kurdistan and Armenia. After visiting Erivan he then proceeded to Georgia on his way to Daghestan. His travelogue, "The Country of Shamyl," was published in Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1861 (London, Macmillan, 1862)

I started for Tiflis from Erivan, on the 26th of June. Villages of Russian colonists became more and more common along the road, and at the north-west end of the Lake Goktschai [Sevan Lake] there is a large settlement, engaged in curing a large species of trout, which are caught in great numbers in the lake and are excellent eating.

From Erivan thus far the road passes over an elevated plateau, treeless and uninteresting; but after crossing the volcanic amphitheater of hills which surround the lake (itself 5,000 feet above the sea), it descends through a ravine, into the soft, wooded, and most lovely valley of Delishan, by which I left, on the fourth day from Erivan, and on the last day of June, the highlands of Armenia for the sultry plains of Georgia. What a change, from green grass and young crops, to a baked soil and corn already being cut; from the fresh breeze of the mountains, to the burning breath which scorched me now!

For some time next day, I rode through a burnt-up uncultivated tract, by two villages now deserted; the upright stones in the graveyards seeming to be the only crop the pestilential air of the fever-blasted plain could nourish; but crossing over an irregular brick bridge, which tradition says was built by an Englishman seven hundred years ago, the road again traversed wide fields of yellow corn.

The horses drawing the wagon, though brisk enough before, could now only creep along, on account of the intense heat. I rode slowly, letting my horse graze and drink from time to time; but when we halted, in the afternoon, I found the other horse, which was merely fastened by his halter behind the wagon, and carrying no one, drenched with cold sweat and altogether in a bad way. I bathed him, pulled his ears, did all I could for him; but he could not look up; so I threw him the end of his halter, and he lay down and died almost directly. It was a regular case of sunstroke. The one I had ridden

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was fresh and lively after he had been groomed and fed; so I gave him four hours' rest, then mounted him again, and rode all night, till, at daybreak, I found myself on the banks of the Koor [Kura/Mtkvari River], and in sight of the outskirts of Tiflis. It was too early to find any one up in the town, so I lay down and slept for an hour or two before entering the capital town of Georgia.

Entering Tiflis from this direction, it is necessary to pass through the narrow dirty streets of the Asiatic quarter, bazaars of arms, furs, slippers, etc., where the artisans carry on their trades in small shops open to the street. The Russian quarter lies higher, and has wide straight streets, large houses, a pretty theatre, and a well-managed club, where strangers are admitted simply on the nomination of a member: it is altogether European. The shops are good, but everything is dear; the hotels afford very poor accommodation. Bare, sun-burnt, brick-coloured hills rise close behind the town, retaining the heat of the sun, and emitting it again after he has set. In these the hot sulphur springs, which were, doubtless, the cause of the town being built in this unhealthy situation, take their rise and run down to the bathhouses in the lower town. The temperature of the water is so high as to require passing through two or three gradations before it is even fit for the hottest bath. In the shallow watercourse, which runs outside the baths and along the public street, I have seen women bathing in a state of almost perfect nudity, and without exciting much attention from the passersby. I should be glad to be able to cite this as a proof of primitive simplicity of manners; but, in truth, I cannot ascribe to them any such quality—quite the reverse.

The general aspect of the town is singular; the houses rising in terraces on both sides of the Koor [Kura/Mtkvari], which flows through the town in a broad turbid stream: the views from the bridges are very striking. The polygonal towers of the churches, of which there are very many, the wooden balconies which shade the houses, the mixed population of Russians, Georgians, Tartars, and Persians, with their varieties of costume, give a character to Tiflis quite peculiar to itself. As a residence, it must be disagreeable: the climate is unhealthy, and fever is general; all the springs are impregnated with one foul flavour or another, and the muddy waters of the Koor are far from pleasant drinking; the dust in dry weather is a perfect plague, and penetrates everywhere—closed windows are no protection; and after rain the streets and squares of the Russian quarter are a perfect quagmire; the lower town is paved roughly. In summer it is dull enough, as everyone who can, gets away to the baths at Patigorsk [Pyatigorsk, resort town in the North Caucasus] or elsewhere; but in winter I am assured that there is plenty of amusement, an opera, balls, parties, and flirtation to any amount.

At this time I could only stay three days at Tiflis, for Baron Finot, the kind and accomplished French Consul, invited me to accompany him on an expedition to Elbruz. The Governor of Zugdidi, in Mingrelia, a province south of the Caucasus on the Black Sea, was waiting for him, with two hundred horsemen as escort, and it was an opportunity not to be lost. I had time, however, in the interval before the day fixed for starting with him, to see the great pass of Dariel, that stupendous cleft which divides the Caucasus in half, to its very foundations. The post-road connecting Tiflis with Moscow runs through this, passing close under the Kasbek, second in height only to Elbruz of all the mountains of the Caucasus, and follows the course of the Terek through the wildest scenery to Vladikaukaz [Vladikavkaz], a little way beyond the north mouth of the gorge.

I made this journey rather hastily by the post: to do justice to its beauty, it should be done on horseback. Subsequently I repented the haste with which I had passed by places, which might form head-quarters for most interesting excursions, when on my return, after six days' absence, I found that Baron Finot was detained at Nukha (a town halfway between Tiflis and the Caspian) to look after the interests and lives of a number of Frenchmen, both of which were at that moment in rather a precarious condition. A disease having attacked the silk-worms in France, as in other places, for the last two or three years, it has been the custom for a number of Frenchmen, who are engaged in the silk trade, to join company and travel to Nukha to buy the "graine," as the eggs are called . This year, these men, about a score in number, happened to come out in the same vessel as myself from Constantinople to Trebizond, and seemed decent well-conducted people. The native population, however, considered that they interfered with their trade; and the French, it is said, gave offence by their conduct towards the women, a liberty which a Mahometan [Muslim] people will not allow. The end of the matter was that two mullahs were imported from Constantinople, who preached against the French in the mosques, and excited the people to that degree, that a number rushed out with the determination of destroying the offenders. There were four Frenchmen in the first house which they attacked: one escaped, the others defended themselves with resolution; and though two were killed, and the third desperately wounded, an alarm was raised and the affair put an end to.

I waited some time, hoping Baron Finot would soon return, and that I should not lose my visit to Elbruz; but I found there was no chance of it, so I prepared to put in execution a plan, which I had long formed, of crossing Daghestan to Ghunib. There, it had always appeared to me, lay the crowning point of interest in the Caucasus, being the country which Schamyl [Shamil] so long successfully defended, and the natural fortress where he was at length taken prisoner.

When, after ten more days at Tiflis, I was on the point of starting for my journey, I was rather embarrassed by my servant declaring himself too ill to go. It was evidently the case, and I was at my wits' end to find another, when my friend, Mr. Rice, an Englishman, in whom a long residence in Russia has not destroyed a strong predilection for his countrymen (a feeling which it is often the fashion for foreign residents to disclaim), came to my assistance, and lent me a servant. Speaking Russian, Georgian, and a little French, this man was of great service to me.

On Monday, the 22d of July, I started by the Russian post, along a fair road for Segnach [Sighnaghi, in eastern Georgia]. I was fortunate in finding horses at every station, and travelling rapidly, I arrived in about fourteen hours, including stoppages. The scenery thus far was tame, the road passing over the burnt-up undulating plain of the Jora [Iori] river, divided by a low range of hills from the charming valley of the Alazan. Segnach lies along the top of this range, and commands a splendid view of the great chain of the Caucasus. It was too dark to see this overnight, but next morning it burst upon me in all its glory. I had not hitherto seen any view of the Caucasus which I could call comprehensive; for at Tiflis, and on the road to Vladikavkaz, inferior chains of hills and long spurs interfered, but here no obstacle intervenes, and the eye may range for many miles, both up and down the broad and fertile valley below, surveying the mountains from their very bases to their summits.

Early next morning I drove down into this valley of the Alazan, and still travelling by the post, kept just under the soft well-wooded hills, which hem it in on the south, to Telaw [Telavi], where I arrived in good time. The Judge of this district, to whom I brought a letter of introduction, gave me a hearty welcome, and I stayed with him two days, while I made my plans for crossing the mountains. The Governor, however, hearing of my arrival in the town, sent me an invitation; he proved not only an agreeable acquaintance, but a most useful friend. He told me he was aware I had been trying to hire horses for my journey, but that was not the way to travel; I ought to ride Government horses and take a proper escort. Of course I had not the smallest objection, but I at once expressed my extreme surprise at the proposal, telling him how men in England, supposed to have the best information, had, with one accord, warned me that my chief obstacle to travelling in the Caucasus would be the jealousy of the Russian officials. How unfounded was this belief, will sufficiently appear in my account of this one expedition.

On the 25th of July, I left Telaw in a troika (a small cart without springs, drawn by three horses abreast), and crossed the valley of the Alazan, now through yellow corn-fields and vineyards, producing the famous Kakhetian wine; now by snug villages, nestling among walnut-trees, knotted with age, and casting a most welcome shade; then through thickets of tall shrubs and low trees, so lovingly bound together by wild vines and flowering creepers, as to be impenetrable but by the axe; while in front lay the mysterious Caucasus. Its thickly wooded, lower slopes, were backed by successive ridges without rock or peak, but grassy to their summits, and towering like dark walls above the plain.

Some three hours of tolerably rapid driving, brought me across the valley to the village of Sabooi [Sabue], scattered pleasantly about, between two spurs of the mountains, and I drove straight to the house of the principal proprietor, to whom the Governor of Telaw had given me a letter. He was a capital specimen of a Georgian gentleman, frank and hospitable, and his home was a fair type of a country-house, something like an old rambling farm-house in England, with the addition of a large wooden balcony running all along the front of the upper story. Before it was a piece of grass, where large dogs basked and a flock of turkeys pecked, with some out-buildings; the whole was surrounded by a strong fence of wattled boughs,  about eight feet high.

My host and I dined alone at one o'clock, and then separated, to sleep through the hotter hours of the afternoon; but when I was summoned to tea on the lawn, I found four ladies added to our party, all Georgians. The wife and daughter of my entertainer wore the white flowing veil, and the embroidered coronet usual in Georgia, while I was surprised to find the others, at the foot of the Caucasus, arrayed in the last Paris fashions, and also, to my great delight, speaking excellent French. After tea, as we walked about, I found that it was still considered dangerous to wander after sun-set more than a couple of hundred yards from the house, and that three years ago they would not have ventured beyond the gates, for a forest runs down to the village, and may at any time harbour a party of murderous Lesghian mountaineers.

At supper, which was also served out of doors, my friend thought it right to follow the Georgian custom, and make me drink as much Kakhetian wine as I could carry; and as bottle after bottle disappeared, I saw with horror a fresh one placed on the table. I explained to my fair neighbour that a milk diet among the Koords [Kurds] had ill prepared me for the contest, when she kindly comforted me by the assurance that the Prince, our host, was becoming rapidly drunk. This restored my courage, and though the measures were large and no heeltaps allowed, to the Prince's Tartar challenge, oft repeated, of Allah-verdi [God gave it], I steadily responded by the customary Yakshi oul [Happy journey], and an emptied tumbler: I felt considerable self-approval, when I found myself capable of walking to my room. The ladies usually assist at these entertainments, and though of course partaking with extreme moderation themselves, I don't believe that they would consider a guest, who imitated them in that respect, at all to be commended for his sobriety.

The wine of Kakheti is justly celebrated throughout Georgia. There are two kinds, red and white: the red much resembling Burgundy, the white possessing a flavour peculiar to itself. In private cellars, the wine is kept in large earthen jars, but for transport and in wine-shops, it is put into ox-hides, which, when they are distended, wobble about in such a plethoric fashion, as to inspire one with an almost irresistible desire to ease them with a pen-knife; and these give a strong unpleasant flavour to their contents.

I was obliged to spend another day with these kind people, and the morning after I left them with regret. The Prince gave me four horses and a guide to convey me with my servant and baggage to Cadori, half a day's journey up the mountains.

A few versts up the valley, behind Sabooi, I came upon a Russian camp, employed in making a road, which, only lately begun, is eventually to cross the mountains to Ghunib. I dined and spent the hot afternoon with the officers here, and by great good luck, fell in with my friend Vinci, who I knew was somewhere in the neighbourhood, and who rode into camp while I was there.

An engineer officer of great repute, he had the whole military force in this part of the country working under his direction; and as I had travelled with him previously, and we had shared in a rather serious accident, I knew that his assistance, and none could be more valuable, would be freely rendered me. He had come from Cadori, whither I was bound, and returned thither with me.