. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. able vagary of direc-tion that characterise real snow. Suddenly, out of the greymystery in front of us, atroop of Cossack soldierscame riding, a couple ofhundred of them, return-ing from their service onthe Armenian frontier totheir little villages in theplain. These men aresupplied with rifies andammunition by Govern-ment; their wiry littlehorses, their armoury ofsabres, knives, and pistols,are their own. Shroudedin the black, shaggy, feltcloak that descends to thehorses t
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. able vagary of direc-tion that characterise real snow. Suddenly, out of the greymystery in front of us, atroop of Cossack soldierscame riding, a couple ofhundred of them, return-ing from their service onthe Armenian frontier totheir little villages in theplain. These men aresupplied with rifies andammunition by Govern-ment; their wiry littlehorses, their armoury ofsabres, knives, and pistols,are their own. Shroudedin the black, shaggy, feltcloak that descends to thehorses tail, and nearlycovers their big felt boots in the short stirrups, cowled each in his pointed hashlik,a hood with two ends wound round the neck and falling downthe back, they seemed like some ghostly procession of war-like friars passing in slow defile. Each cone-shaped silhouetteupon his high saddle, with wild face—and v^?hat faces they were!—looking straight in front of him was the incarnation of allthat is picturesque, romantic, in a word, Caucasian. Presently the veil was lifted; the flakes grew slimmer and. The Georgian Road, the Top of the Pass-Old Road. 196 ALL THE RUSSIAS finer, the sun flashed out, the hood of the carriage was thrownback, and there beside us, mantled in a flawless ermine, wasKasbek and his court of peaks, bright and glittering against aheaven of Italian blue. In his winter majesty, every seam andfissure of yesterday, filled and smoothed with one night-fall ofsnow, he was scarce to be looked on by his subjects. And now,with many a zigzag, the road mounted in good earnest; we en-countered the immobile oxen yoked to the snow-ploughs, wecame upon the artificial tunnels, made to accommodate ava-lanches. These places where the road suddenly runs under astoutly timbered roof built against the mountain-side, bring hometo one the chances of winter, and the eventuaUties that may—and often do—overtake the faithful post-wagon with its Euro-pean mails for Ti
Size: 1466px × 1703px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
