. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. I looked out of the window would be there till next April. We started at once, the hood of the carriage up, and littlevisible beyond the backof the driver in his thickpleated woollen gown,but all round in the greyair the broad flakes werein suspension, appar-ently falling with thatslow deliberation, thatincredible downy light-ness, and that incalcul-able vagary of directionthat characterise realsnow. Suddenly, out ofthe grey mystery in frontof us, a troop of Cossacksoldiers c
. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. I looked out of the window would be there till next April. We started at once, the hood of the carriage up, and littlevisible beyond the backof the driver in his thickpleated woollen gown,but all round in the greyair the broad flakes werein suspension, appar-ently falling with thatslow deliberation, thatincredible downy light-ness, and that incalcul-able vagary of directionthat characterise realsnow. Suddenly, out ofthe grey mystery in frontof us, a troop of Cossacksoldiers came riding, acouple of hundred ofthem, returning from their service onthe Armenian frontier to their little villages inthe plain. These men are supplied with rifles and ammunitionby Government ; their wiry little horses, their armoury ofsabres, knives, and pistols, are their own. Shrouded in theblack, shaggy, felt cloak that descends to the horses tail, andnearly covers their big felt boots in the short stirrups,cowled each in his pointed basklik, a hood with twoends wound round the neck and falling down the rm-; gi:(.)Kgi.\x koah, ihk ?ioi_;^ofthe pass-old ROAD 196 ALL THE RUSSIAS they seemed like some ghostly procession of warlike friarspassing in slow defile. Each cone-shaped silhouette uponhis high saddle, with wild face—and what 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 andfiner, 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 ox
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