Caucasus—Character of the Tribes—Circassian Slave Trade—Birth of Schamyl—Personal Appearance—Form of Government—His Army and Body-Guard—Financial Rule—Struggles with Russia—Personal Habits—Legend—Circassian Women in Battle—Escape from the Russians.
Caucasus—Character of the Tribes—Circassian Slave Trade—Birth of Schamyl—Personal Appearance—Form of Government—His Army and Body-Guard—Financial Rule—Struggles with Russia—Personal Habits—Legend—Circassian Women in Battle—Escape from the Russians.
The valleys of the Caucasus afford abundance of detached rocks and overhanging cliffs, bathed by the foaming mountain torrents. On these or other almost inaccessible spots, are perched, like eagles’ nests, the aouls or villages of the natives. Each consists of a number of saklias—houses built of loose fragments of rocks without mortar, and arranged in an amphitheatrical form. Those of the chiefs are larger, and are distinguished by the addition of high towers; the last refuge of the inhabitants in case of attack.
The hardy and frugal mountaineers support themselves by pasturage, and by the cultivation of barley, wheat, and maize, making the best of the scanty soil by carefully terracing and irrigating it. In the more favored districts, the vine is grown with success; and cherry, apple, and pear orchards form no inconsiderable part of the wealth of the inhabitants. Some villages are celebrated for the manufacture of weapons and mail-shirts; and throughout the mountains the greatest attention is paid to the breed of the horses, hardy, sure-footed animals,as much valued by their active enemies, the Cossacks, as by the Caucasians themselves.
The Caucasian character has all the good and all the evil features common among semi-savage mountaineers. Possessed of the most daring courage, and capable of self-devotion to their chiefs altogether without parallel; chivalrous in open warfare, and true to the last to any engagement by which they consider themselves fairly pledged; frugal and temperate in their ordinary habits; honorable and affectionate in their domestic relations; they are, nevertheless, to an enemy, or, indeed, to an outsider of any kind, both ruthless and bloodthirsty, seeming to be actuated by but two motives—love of bloodshed and love of gain. A story of Wagner’s well illustrates this. A Tcherkess made his appearance before the commandant of one of the forts on the Black Sea, and stated that, for a consideration, he was willing to give some important information. This turned out to be, that an attack on the fort had been arranged by a large body of his countrymen to take place on an appointed day; and as it was totally unexpected by the Russians, it would probably have resulted in their destruction. The commandant agreed to pay the reward, but detained the Tcherkess until his statements were verified. Sure enough, on the very day a large body of mountaineers attacked the fort, but found their enemies on the alert, and were repulsed with loss. The Tcherkess received his reward the day after, and was dismissed with thanks. Not many yards from the fort, a Russian soldier, unarmed, was busied in some occupation. The Tcherkess could not resist the opportunity, but shot him, and bounded away into the hills!
In mind as in feature, there are considerable differences between the Eastern and Western Caucasians. The Western is distinguished by the beauty of his form and features, the fairness of his complexion, the open, dashing, careless, European cast of his character. The Asiatic element, on the other hand, predominates in the Eastern tribes. Darker in skin, the eagle eye is deeper set, and its uncertain glitter suggests the suspicion that the passions of a fierce fanatic lie beneath the imagination of a mystic.
The well-known Circassian slave-traffic is carried on by the western tribes only; but it is very different from the slave dealing with which England and America have been polluted. Among the Circassians themselves, matrimony is an affair of traffic, and the loverbuyshis wife of her respectable parents. With the Circassian girls, therefore, it is a question whether they are bought to work hard and live miserably at home, or whether they are bought to have an “establishment” at the expense of some Turkish Pasha. They are not sold to slave or to be ill-treated; and it is said that they almost invariably look forward to their Turkish prospects with great delight, and for that end brave the miseries of the Black Sea passage with pleasure.
Schamyl, the devoted Murid, became Imam and Sultan of the Eastern Caucasus, “the second prophet of Allah,” in the year 1834, and, from that time till the present, has baffled the whole forces of Russia. Born in 1797, Schamyl grew up amidst all those influences which would best fit him to be the future leader of his people. From his earliest childhood, his silent earnest ways, intensedetermination and love of knowledge, distinguished him among his fellows, and Spartan habits and a strong will compensated the natural defects of a delicate physical organization. He is of middle stature, has fair hair, gray eyes overshadowed by thick, well-marked eyebrows, a regular, well-formed nose, and a small mouth. A peculiar fairness and delicacy of skin distinguishes his countenance from that of his fellow-countrymen, and his feet and hands are singularly well shaped. The apparent immovability of his arms in walking indicates the determination of his character. His manner is noble and dignified. Perfectly master of himself, he exercises a silent influence over all who come into contact with him. A stem impassivity, which is undisturbed even in moments of the greatest danger, is his characteristic expression. A condemnation to death falls from his lips with the same calmness as he shows in conferring on a brave Murid the sabre of honor won in some sanguinary fight. With traitors or other offenders, whose death he has once determined upon, he converses without manifesting a shade of angry or vengeful feeling. He regards himself as simply the instrument in the hands of a higher power, and holds that all his thoughts and decisions are the immediate inspiration of God. His eloquence is as fiery and persuasive as his ordinary manner is calm and commanding.
Of a mob of scattered tribes, divided by innumerable feuds, he has made a nation capable of the most complete unity of action, and animated by one faith; and his genius as a lawgiver is as preëminent as his religious enthusiasm. With a strong hand he has swept away allthe old boundaries of race and tribe, however consecrated by tradition, and has completely reörganized the country over which he rules. It is divided into twenty districts, each of which is governed by an officer termed a Naib, whose business it is to preserve order; to superintend the proper raising of taxes and recruits; to limit and control disputes and blood-feuds; and to see that the Scharyat is strictly fulfilled. Every five of these districts, again, are under the superintendence of a Governor, uniting within himself the spiritual and temporal power, and answerable to Schamyl alone, who allows to certain of his favorites only, absolute power over life and death; while the others must refer to himself in such cases. Each Naib has a deputy or coädjutor. In every village there is a Cadi or Elder, whose duty it is to make regular reports to his Naib of all important occurrences, and to carry out the orders which he may receive from him, while the local Mollah has the spiritual care of the village. Every man capable of bearing arms has right of access to his Cadi or Naib at a fixed time of the day, when audiences are held and business transacted. Rapid communication through all parts of the country is insured by a sort of flying post. In each village several swift horses are kept saddled and bridled, and when a state messenger arrives, hearing a passport sealed by the Naib of the district, it is the business of the Cadi to furnish him instantly with a fresh horse and a guide to the next post. In this way Schamyl’s messages and orders are transmitted with incredible swiftness.
The standing army of five or six thousand men is thus kept up; every ten houses of a village must maintain awarrior, one house providing the man, and the other nine his horse, accoutrements, and support. The family to which he belongs is, so long as he is alive, free of all taxes, but he must never be without his arms, and must be ready, day and night, to march at a moment’s notice. Furthermore, every male from fifteen to fifty is liable to be called out for the defence of his village, or, in extraordinary cases, to the general army; and in the latter case, each horseman of ten houses commands the men of those houses.
Schamyl’s body-guard is composed of a selection from the Murids, and its members are called Murtosigators. Only the hottest enthusiasts among the Murids, men of whose entire devotion Schamyl is well assured, are chosen for this post, which is considered among the Caucasians to be in the highest degree honorable. The prophet puts the most implicit confidence in those whom he has once selected, and they on the other hand renounce every tie, and place their lives in his hand. If unmarried, they must remain so; and if married, they must strictly avoid their families during their period of service. Like Schamyl himself, they must live frugally, and carry out the Scharyat to the very letter. They wear peculiar insignia, and receive regular pay, with a share of all spoils; there are usually about one thousand of them, five hundred of whom always surround Schamyl’s person, access to which is very difficult. In time of peace, the Murtosigators are Schamyl’s apostles, and considerable sums are placed at their disposal for the carrying out of their propaganda. At the same time, they form a most efficient body of police, whose accusations might at once destroy the most powerfulNaib. In war, they constitute the heart of Schamyl’s troops and the terror of the Russians, who have never yet succeeded in taking one alive.
At first, Schamyl had no revenue but what was derived from his razzias; but, at present, all the tribes pay a yearly tithe, and if any slain warrior leaves no direct heir, his property goes to the state.
Schamyl’s financial rule is ordinarily distinguished by extreme economy, and he is said to possess large concealed treasures: but if a valorous action is to be rewarded, or a hostile tribe won over, he will expend great sums. He has instituted a regular system of decorations, consisting of medals, epaulettes, and stars; while, on the other hand, his criminal code contains a no less exactly proportioned series of punishments, from the rag tied round the right arm, which is the stigma affixed to the coward—to decapitation, shooting, and stabbing to death. A stern and even-handed justice characterizes all Schamyl’s judgments, and he would long since have fallen a victim to the blood-feuds thus created against himself, were it not for the watchful devotion of his body-guard, the Murtosigators, who constantly surround him in public. The Imam gave once in his own person a frightful earnest of his determination to know no distinction of persons among the violators of his laws. Early in his career, he made a solemn vow that he would put to death whoever, under any circumstances, proposed to him submission to the Giaour. The people of Tchetchenia were well acquainted with the Imam’s oath; but in 1843, finding themselves threatened on all sides by the Russians, and at the same time left without aid by Schamyl, who was otherwiseoccupied, they in despair sent messengers to the latter, begging him either to help them, or to allow them to submit. The office of the envoys was regarded as so hazardous, that their selection was made by the lot. It fell upon four men of the village Gunoi, who accordingly set out upon their mission. Before reaching Dargo, Schamyl’s residence, however, the prospect of success appeared so slight, and the consequences of failure so appalling, that they determined to “eke the lion’s with the fox’s skin,” and without making any direct proposition to Schamyl himself, to endeavour to influence him through his aged mother, the Khaness, who was known to possess great influence over her son, and at the same time to be, like all the mountaineers, by no means insensible to money. A large bribe engaged the Khaness to undertake the dangerous task; and in a private interview she opened the matter to the Imam. What occurred between mother and son is unknown, but when the men of Gunoi anxiously inquired the result of the negotiation, the Khaness, pale and trembling, could only tell them that her son had determined to inquire of Allah concerning their request—and even as they spoke, it was proclaimed that the Imam had shut himself in the mosque, and had commanded that all the people should gather about it and remain fasting and praying till he reäppeared. Three days and nights, it is said, did Schamyl remain invisible, the prostrate multitude without rising higher and higher in fanatical exaltation, as their bodily frames became exhausted. On the fourth morning, Schamyl appeared on the flat roof of the mosque, surrounded by his Murids. All viewed with dismay his usually impassive countenance, distorted andchanged by the traces of some past inward agony. After an interval of profound silence, he directed the nearest Murids to bring his mother into his presence, and when she had arrived, he thus addressed the people: “The will of the Prophet of Allah be done! People of Dargo, the Tchetchenes have dared to think of yielding to the Giaour, and have even ventured to send messengers, hoping for my consent. The messengers, conscious of their sin, dared not appear before my face, but have tempted the weakness of my unhappy mother to be their mediator. For her sake, I have ventured, aided by your prayers, to ask the will of Mohammed the Prophet of Allah; and that will is, that the first who spoke to me of this matter shall be punished with a hundred blows of the heavy whip. It was my mother!”
With these words, Schamyl signed to his Murids, who seized the venerable old Khaness, and bound her to one of the pillars of the mosque. At the fifth blow, she sank dead. Schamyl, with a wild outburst of grief, threw himself at her feet; but suddenly rising again, cried solemnly—“God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet! he hath heard my prayer, and I may take upon myself the remainder of my mother’s expiation!” With that, stripping off his upper garments, he commanded the Murids to inflict the remaining ninety-five blows upon his own back. The punishment fulfilled, Schamyl gave orders that the envoys of the Tchetchenes, terror-stricken witnesses of the preceding scene, should be brought into his presence. The ready Murids half drew their schaskas; but Schamyl, raising the men of Gunoi from the ground on which they had cast themselves in an agony of fear, said only, in hiscalm, impassive way, “Go back to your people; and for my answer, tell them what you have seen to-day.”
Schamyl is simple and abstemious in the extreme in his personal habits. Contenting himself with a few hours’ sleep, he sometimes spends night after night in prayer and watching without showing the least symptoms of weariness. Not yet sixty, he is full of life and vigor; though at present he takes an active share in the war only rarely, and on great occasions. He lives in Dargo, where he has caused the enemy’s deserters to build him a two-storied house in the Russian fashion, and is said to have three wives, the chief of whom is an Armenian of great beauty.
Once, or at most twice, in the year, the Imam retires to some remote cave, or shuts himself up in his most private apartments, and a strong cordon of watchful Murtosigators prevents any person whatever from having access to him. In this solitude he spends three weeks—fasting, praying, and reading the Koran. On the evening of the last day of his seclusion, the principal Mollahs and Murids, accompanied by a host of pilgrims, gathered in high expectation about the holy place, are summoned to meet him. He tells them that Mohammed has appeared to him in the form of a dove, revealing the mysteries of the faith, laying upon him such and such commands, and encouraging him to persevere in the holy war. Then showing himself to the throng without, he addresses them with the eloquence for which he is famed, rousing to the highest pitch their religious devotion and their hatred against the Muscovites. The whole assembly now joins in a solemn hymn. The men draw their schaskas, renew their oath to defend thefaith and to destroy the Russians, and then disperse, shouting, “God is great! Mohammed is his first prophet, and Schamyl his second!”
The total population of the Caucasus does not exceed a million and a half, and Schamyl’s rule does not extend over more than six hundred thousand souls. The force under his command at any time, even taking the Russian accounts, has never surpassed twenty thousand men.
In the last ten years the Russian army of the Caucasus has consisted of more than one hundred and fifty thousand men, provided with every appliance of modern warfare, flanked right and left by sea-coasts commanded by their own cruisers, and directed by a government utterly regardless of human life. Fevers and Caucasian bullets are said to cost the Russians twenty thousand men yearly; and when the Czar sends a political offender into the ranks of the recruits for the Caucasus, he does not expect to see him again. The Russian ordnance accounts for the year 1840, show an expenditure of 11,344 artillery cartridges, and 1,206,575 musket cartridges!
The people of the Caucasus are said to have a legend that some day a powerful Sultan will arise in the West, and finally deliver them from the hands of the Muscovite padischah.
In 1839, the severest conflicts which had yet occurred between the Caucasians and their enemies the Russians took place. General Grabbe, an active officer, had succeeded to the command of the left flank of the army of the Caucasus, and determining to strike a decisive blow, concentrated a force of nine battalions, with seventeen pieces of artillery, and marched to attack Akhulgo.The assault took place on the 17th of August, when the Russians succeeded in obtaining possession of the outworks of the fortress. For the ensuing four days, Akhulgo was a scene of horror. In a succession of attacks, the Russian soldiers displayed that ferocious bravery which they evince whenever sufficient blood has been shed to wash the serf out of their hearts—while the mountaineers, mad with rage and despair, and hopeless of life, made their last aim the destruction of as many as possible of the accursed Muscovites—the very women fighting like tigresses. A Russian eye-witness says:
Shortly before the end of the fight, following Captain (now Colonel) Schultz, the boldest among the brave, at the head of the remains of my battalion, I climbed a steep ascent. The firing from above had ceased; the wind dispersed the dense clouds of smoke which, like a curtain, hung between us and the fortress, and over my head I saw a number of Circassian women standing on a little flat platform in the face of the rock. The closer and closer approach of our troops showed them too surely their fate, but, determined not to fall alive into our hands, they spent their last strength in destroying their enemies. Surrounded by the smoke, which grew clearer as we approached, they looked like avenging spirits born of the clouds, and scattering fear and destruction from the mountain side. In the heat of the fight, they had thrown off their upper garments, and their long thick hair streamed in wild disorder over their half-bared necks and bosoms. With superhuman exertion, four of these women contrived to roll down a vast stone, which came thundering towards us, passing within a few feet of me, and crushing severalof my soldiers. I saw a young woman who till then had been, with fixed eyes, a quiet spectator of the bloody tragedy, suddenly grasp the little child that clung to her garments; I saw her dash its head to pieces against a projecting rock, and hurling it, with a wild shriek, down the abyss, leap after it. Many of the other women followed her example.
Akhulgo was taken, but Schamyl was not to be found in it, dead or alive. The Russian officers, however, had seen him, surrounded by his Murids, in the thickest of the fight, and knew he must be there. After awhile, intelligence was received that he and two or three of his Murids were concealed in a cave excavated in a face of the cliff overlooking the Koissu, permitting of access only by a ladder, which they had drawn after them. A considerable body of men, horse and foot, was immediately set to watch the mouth of the cave, whence, on the first dark night, the guard observed a small raft of planks being very carefully lowered by a rope into the Koissu; a Murid followed, who, after appearing to look carefully in all directions, made a signal; then followed another; and at last came a third in the white garb of Schamyl. The raft was cut adrift, and the whole party dashed down the stream of the Koissu. In an instant, the Russians, who had carefully watched the whole proceedings, rushed upon them. The infantry fired from the bank, and the Cossack cavalry waded and swam their horses into the Koissu. The little crew of the raft, after defending itself with tenacity, was soon cut and shot down; but when the Russians examined their corpses, Schamyl was not there. While every one’s attention had been drawn from thecave, he had lowered himself by the rope, and swimming the Koissu, had plunged into the forests of the opposite bank. The devotion of his Murids had saved the life and the cause of the prophet. Fifteen hundred dead lay in the ruins of Akhulgo, and six hundred prisoners, mostly wounded, were taken by the Russians.
The taking of Akhulgo was the crisis of Schamyl’s fate. But an event which seemed utterly to annihilate his party, in reality served only to consolidate his power, and to render its foundation secure. The fifteen hundred slain in Akhulgo were the seeds of so many blood-feuds between the Russians and every tribe in the Caucasus—the pledges of an unquenchable personal hatred on the part of the mountaineers to the Muscovites, for ever. The wanton brutality of the soldiers to the inhabitants, in their line of march, disgusted even those tribes who would have been willing to remain friendly; and all learned unmistakably what they had to expect from Russian rule. On the other hand, the skill and courage shown by Schamyl and his followers in the defence, and the severe losses which they inflicted upon the invaders, appealed to the inmost sympathies of the gallant Caucasians; while the escape of the Imam, the details of which he carefully kept secret, appeared, for the third time, to be due to nothing but the miraculous interference of Allah. Schamyl himself, finding that no courage could resist the “Czar’s pistols,” as his people called the field-pieces, learned to change his tactics, and henceforward to confine himself to the guerilla warfare for which the country seems made. His wonderful energy soon revived the spirit of his people, and early in 1840, all Tchetchenia was in revolt again.
The storming of Akhulgo, is the last real advantage of which the Russians have to boast. Schamyl, henceforward avoiding fortifications in the European style, set up his head-quarters at Dargo. Here he organized a scheme of government, which converted the whole of Lesghistan and the greater part of Tchetchenia into a vast military colony, and gave him the power of concentrating his forces upon a given point with the utmost ease. His system has been to avoid as much as possible coming into contact with the Russians in open ground. If the Russians make an expedition against him, he never opposes their entrance into the passes—no sign of life is, for the first day or two, to be seen in the mountains; but as the gorges narrow and the ground becomes more difficult, dropping shots from invisible enemies pick off the Russian officers. By degrees the dropping shots increase into a hot fire, and clouds of wild Lesghians and Tschetchenians, agile and surefooted as goats, hover behind trees and stones.