A keen big-game hunter, Phillips-Wolley travelled around the world in search of hunting experiences. He wrote many books of travel, hunting and adventure, including "Savage Svanetia," a two-volume travelogue, published in 1883, of his voyage to hunt in the mountains of Svanetia.
As he mentions in his preface, Phillipps-Wolley had long heard about Svanetia, which had "always been spoke of to me as a hungry land inhabited by an angry people." But he also knew that it was "among the least known corners of the Caucasus" and was eager to explore it, especially because of it offered prospects of unique hunting experiences.
In the summer of 1882, Phillipps-Wolley travelled across Europe to Odessa where he got on a steamer to cross the Black Sea. By August he was already in Kutaisi, where bad news awaited him: Prince Nicholas (Niko) Dadiani, who extended him an invitation for a hunting trip, cancelled the hunt due the illness of his mother Princess Ekaterine Dadiani. Forced to stay in Kutaisi, Phillipps-Wolley was unexpectedly contacted by "Princess A." who had overheard him speaking English in a street and invited him to join her husband's shooting party. But before they could go the Canadian and his friend were invited to a Georgian dinner party...
The dinner was, I believe, Georgian in style, but was sufficiently like a Russian dinner to need no description here. The drinking, not the eating, is the salient feature in a Caucasian feast. A toast-giver toolambatch [from Turkish toplum başı, "head of the party"; Georgian, tamada] having been appointed, we took our places at table, eighteen guests in all, and every guest, except an English young lady, the governess of the family, and ourselves, of princely rank.
Having swallowed our modicum of neat spirit which, with some trifling relish, such as a large white radish or piece of salt cheese, forms the necessary prelude of every dinner, we were allowed about five minutes for honest, straightforward feeding. Then the toolambatch arose, and our glasses (small tumblers) having been filled with the red wine of Kakhetia, the toast-giver proposed the health of the Princess. At this all rose, bowed, and clinked glasses with our hostess, emptied the tumblers, struck them loudly on the table; and then the nimble-fingered amongst the men sent their glasses whirling head over heels in the air, to show they were innocent of heel taps, caught them as they descended in their left hands, and replaced them on the table with a force that made the plates rattle. Then all sang in chorus a kind of thanksgiving to the giver of the feast, to a tune which sounded rather like a Gregorian chant. In about another minute the glasses were recharged, some one else's health proposed, and the same ceremony performed in its honour. This kind of thing continued until every one's health had been drunk, by which time seventeen honest tumblers had been emptied by each member of the dinner party, no small feat for men not used to large libations.
There was only one trifling distraction during this first part of dinner, which was owing to the bodily peril of a member of the party. One of the princes, it seems, had left the table unobserved, and sought solitude in the yard below the dining-room, whether to escape his fair share of wine or devote his time to hatching an extempore joke still remains a mystery. However, we were roused to a sense of his absence by piercing screams; and on a party being detailed to inquire into the cause, we found the unhappy absentee had been "baled up" in his bedroom by an irate turkey-cock who, resenting his intrusion in the yard, had violently assaulted and expelled him.
Having released the prisoner, and finding that no one remained to whose health tumblers had not been emptied, the toolambatch rose to the occasion, and showed himself worthy of the public confidence reposed in him. Toast followed toast in rapid succession, until sobriety trembled on its last legs, and instant flight or an ignominious descent below the salt seemed imminent.
"To the health of Madame W.," said the toolambatch. Clink, clink went the glasses, up they flew, and again the rattling plates recorded another glassful to be atoned for with headaches and soda-water the day after. "Has Mr. F. got a wife?" whispers the Princess in my ear. "No," I return thankfully. The reply is telegraphed to the other end of the table, and the toolambatch, rising gravely in his place, proposes the health of the future Mrs. F., which is hailed with immense applause. Mr. W.'s family, Mr. F.'s future family, our united grandmothers and aunts, and a host of other toasts follow with amazing rapidity, and then to our intense relief the Princess gives the signal, "cease firing." "Just one last glass before we part," she suggests, and fills for each of us a large port wine glass full of strong liqueur, having done justice to which, with a courage born of despair, Frank and I make our adieux as best we can, and next minute find ourselves congratulating each other on our happy release, and the extraordinarily unnatural phenomenon that we are still able to walk straight.
We thought we had escaped our friends when we reached the shelter of our hotel, but little did we know when we ventured to indulge in such illusive dreams the hospitality of the Caucasian heart, or its rooted aversion to sobriety in a guest. I state a mere fact when I say that not to make a man drunk when he is your guest is looked upon in the Caucasus as a breach of hospitality—a distinct failure in that cordial entertainment for which the country is famed. A Georgian of Racha, whom I knew well, once said to me in talking of the matter, "What are we to do? We have no games except cards, no entertainments of any kind; when a man comes to us, we want to make him merry, and nothing does that so well as wine. The process of getting drunk is the pleasantest thing in life, and when he is too far gone to drink any more, we just let him sleep until he is ready to begin again."
This being the spirit of the country, it was small wonder that at the hotel doors we met our host of the morrow's hunt with two other jovial princes, and an array of champagne bottles awful to behold. To refuse was to offend our friends, ruin our reputations as hard-headed Englishmen, and get no shooting at Kutais or help beyond. So with a sigh we submitted to the inevitable, and sat down.
A more perfect linguist than Prince A. I never met, and his knowledge of English sporting terms was as wonderful as his capacity for champagne. But at last it was over, and the last assault of the enemy having failed to carry the Englishmen off their legs, the princes beat an orderly retreat, and the besieged were allowed to retire with all the honours of war, i.e., the waiter lighted them up to their rooms still sober enough to get their boots off.
So ended the night; but the dawn had hardly commenced when the sound of wheels in the street below and trampling of feet by our bedsides roused us unceremoniously from our slumbers. There they were again, like nightmares before our sleepy vision, the Prince and his companions, looking as fresh as paint, in full sporting costume, with rifles in hand—men, carriages, and dogs all below in the street—begging us to tumble as speedily as possible into our clothes and come down to the street, where their people were waiting to drive us to covert. Already, they urged, we were almost too late. The dawn would be visible in the sky in a few more minutes, the wolves would be back in covert from their midnight maraudings, and if our places were not taken before that, not a wolf would be found to reward our vigil when the beaters came through.
So, with scarcely the keenness that the promise of a wolf hunt should rouse in a sportsman's breast, we shook ourselves together, and casting rueful glances at the warm couches from which we had been torn, lit our pipes and prepared for the raw morning air....
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