Chapter I: Front Matter

SPORT
IN THE
CRIMEA AND CAUCASUS

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

SPORT
IN
THE CRIMEA AND CAUCASUS

BY

CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY, F.R.G.S.

LATE BRITISH VICE-CONSUL AT KERTCH

LONDON

RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen

1881

_All rights reserved_

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA.

PAGE

Outfit--The droshky--A merry party--The Straits of
Kertch--The steppe--Wild-fowl--Crops--The Malos--The ‘Starrie
Metchat’--Game--Tscherkess greyhounds--Stalking bustards--A
picnic--Night on the steppe 1

CHAPTER II.

CRASNOI LAIS.

A frozen sea--Swarms of wild-fowl--The Indo-European
telegraph--Sledging on the Azov--A desolate
scene--Taman--Journey inland--Tumerūk--Hotels--A dangerous
sleep--Foxes--Wolves--A hasty retreat--Ekaterinodar--Supper in
the forest of Crasnoi Lais--An exciting night’s sport--Driving
the forest--Cossack beaters--Wild deer--Other game--The
bag--Rations of vodka--A Cossack orgy--Vulpine sagacity--Wolf
stories--Return to Kertch 15

CHAPTER III.

ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE.

Mountaineers and Shikaree--Outfit--Journey from London to
Odessa--Snipe-shooting on the Dnieper--A drunken yemstchik--A
collision--Prince Vorontzoff--Aloupka--Yalta--Livadia and
Orianda--Miskitchee lake--A Tartar butcher--Native hovels--A
shooting party on the lake--A dreary bivouac 41

CHAPTER IV.

THE RED FOREST AND BLACK SEA COAST.

Journey to Taman--Downpour on the steppe--Tscherkess
bourkas--Long-tailed horses--Absence of cultivation--The
Moujiks--Causes of political discontent in
Russia--Veneration for the Czar--Cheapening supplies--A
Russian writer on Englishwomen--Post stations--A terrible
tragedy--Hotels--Ekaterinodar--The fair--Russian
tea--Russian police--Bivouacking with Cossack
foresters--Exciting sport--Shooting a white boar--Sad
disappointment--Pheasant-shooting--A Cossack colonel--An
execrable journey--Caucasian women--Great consumption of
supplies--In a Cossack saddle--Mineral springs--A scorching
bath--Lotus-eaters--Incidents of the road--An insolent
Tartar--Parting 59

CHAPTER V.

HEIMAN’S DATCH.

Duapsè--Tscherkess emigrants--By the sea-shore--Superb
scenery--Drunken guides--A Cossack station--Bears--Take
possession of a ruined villa--Hiding our provisions--Wild
swine--Astray in the jungle--A rough breakfast--Boars
in file--A missfire--Forest fruit--Lose our horses--A
panther--Night-watch--Shooting in the dark--On the
trail--_Barse_--A friendly Cossack--Deserted by my servants 93

CHAPTER VI.

GOLOVINSKY.

Lunch in the forest--Picturesque riding--A spill--Telegraph
shanty at Golovinsky--Robinson Crusoe--Native guns--Tracks
of game--Multitudes of pheasants---Paucity of native
hunters--Tscherkess mocassins--Experiences of forest
life--Killing a bear--Cooking him--Another bag--A lost
chance--Anecdotes of ‘Michael Michaelovitch’--Shooting a boar 110

CHAPTER VII.

DENSE COVERTS.

Unsuccessful sport--Bruin and Stepan--Black bread and
onions--Forest music--Mosquitoes--Ticks and other
insects--Bruin’s fondness for honey--Butterflies--Our
larder--Narrow escape of Stepan--Unlucky days--Watching for
swine--Otters--A cold vigil--An exasperating march 132

CHAPTER VIII.

HUNTING WITH DOGS.

Refitting--Our mongrels--Shipping our
spoils--Visitors--Stepan’s yarns--The hedgehog--Legend of the
bracken--The Euxine in a fury--Trebogging--Traces of Tscherkess
villages--Enormous boars--Their feeding grounds--Lose a
bear--Impenetrable thickets hiding the proximity of big
game--A rare day’s sport--Shooting in the moonlight--An
expedition--Fever--Precautions against it--Unsuccessful sport
and hard fare 145

CHAPTER IX.

RETURN TO KERTCH.

Return to Heiman’s Datch--Bears--Stepan’s shooting
apparatus--Journey to Duapsè--A delightful dinner--Interview
with the Governor--Insects--German farm--A dangerous
adventure--A wedding supper--Leave Duapsè for
Ekaterinodar--Krimsky fair--Russian roughs--Peasant
women--A show booth--A hazardous road--Inexpensive
travelling--Ekaterinodar--_Table d’hôte_ at the Petersburg
hotel--The treasury--Droshky-racing--A beaten rival--Caucasian
fish--Arrival at Kertch 165

CHAPTER X.

TIFLIS.

The Russo-Turkish War--Sukhoum--Alleged abundance of
game--Poti--My fellow-travellers--Sport in Kutais--Arrival
in Tiflis--Hotels and other features of the town--The
British Consul--Organ-grinders in request--A ‘happy
day’--Drinking habits--Native wines--German settlers--Shooting
expedition--A caravan--Kariâs steppe--A lawless
country--Fevers--Antelope-hunting--An unpleasant adventure:
running for dear life--A wounded antelope--The lions of
Tiflis--Museum and bazaar--Schoolboys--Prevalence of uniforms
and orders--Phenomena of Russian life--Buying a travelling
pass--Professor Bryce’s ascent of Ararat 186

CHAPTER XI.

EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN.

Start from Tiflis--My yemstchik--Travelling
carts--Caucasian road-makers--Camel caravans--On the bleak
steppe--Persian hawking--Subterranean dwellings--Shooting
at Kariur--Elizabetpol--An execrable journey--Hawks
and starling--Banditti--Curing official corruption
at Tiflis--Goktchai--A wearying day’s sport--Fear of
highwaymen--My guide, Allai--Arrival at Gerdaoul--Hospitable
Lesghians 231

CHAPTER XII.

THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS.

Gerdaoul--Shooting partridges--Native wine-vaults--Expedition
among the hills--Native houses--An inhospitable village--A
dangerous ride--A welcome reception--Shepherd-boys--The
Lesghians--Russian love for the Czar--Unsuitable
education--Mountain-climbing--Magnificent scenery--Red
deer--Vegetation--A chamois--A weary descent--A happy
people--Photographing the scenery--A ‘Baboushka’--‘Developing’
our photographs--A mountain châlet--The snow peaks--Wild
goats and sheep--Difficult mountaineering--An alluring
chase--Suspended over a precipice--A bleak night’s
lodging--Mountain turkeys--Black pheasants--Lammergiers--Advice
to travellers--Return to Goktchai 255

CHAPTER XIII.

FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN.

Rough travelling--Shooting by the way--Shemakha
and Aksu--Tarantasses and post-roads--A wretched
station--Mud volcanoes and naphtha springs--Bustards--On
the road to Salian--Swarms of wild-fowl--A rascally
official--Disappointed hopes--A good Samaritan--Rival
hosts--Asiatic fever--The Mooghan steppe--Pelicans and
myriads of other birds--Tartar orgies--Banished secretaries:
the Molochans and Skoptsi--Arrival at Lenkoran--A Persian
gunsmith--Fellow-sportsmen 287

CHAPTER XIV.

SHORES OF THE CASPIAN.--RETURN TO TIFLIS.

Lenkoran--Abundance of game--Eryvool forest--Native fowlers--A
hunting lodge--Swarming coverts--Wild boar--A paradise for
sportsmen--Pigs at bay--‘Old Shirka’ and his quarry--A dying
eagle--Caspian woodpeckers--Festive nights--Watching for a
tiger--Forest life by night--The eagle-owl and his prey--End of
a long vigil--The rainy season--The streets of Lenkoran--The
return journey to Tiflis--Adventure at Adji Kabool--Experiences
of post-travel--Bullying a station-master--Armenian
Protestants--Russian telegraph service--In miserable plight--A
spill over a precipice--Refitting our tarantasse--_Argumentum
ad hominem_--An awkward predicament--Chasing a
yemstchik--Renewed life at Tiflis--Great snowfall--Running
down antelope--The ‘black death’ 311

CHAPTER XV.

THE RAINS.

Poti--Chasing wild boar--Red-deer--Turks and
Cossacks--Sotcha--Lynxes--Game in the Caucasus--A hunting
party--A wounded sow--Beautiful scene--An unexpected bag--Our
_cuisine_--The ‘evil eye’--Overtaken by the rains--Our tent
inundated--Surrounded by wolves--Cheerless days--A terrible
catastrophe--Welcome help--Golovinsky--A wild scene--Eluding
the storm--Fording a torrent--A refuge--Scant supplies--Cossack
cradle-song--The Cossacks of to-day--Russian plantations--A
terrible ride--Struggling for life--Cossack loafers--Ride to
Duapsè--Forlorn days--Mad wolves--Wrestling a Tartar--Laid up
with fever--Return to England 340

_A verst is equal to three-quarters of an English mile._

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA AND THE CAUCASUS.