He said that, notwithstanding the almost organic distaste of the inhabitants of this region for having anything to do with people not belonging to their own tribes, there was nevertheless developed in nearly every one of them, to whatever tribe he belonged, a certain something which naturally arouses in him a feeling of respect and even love towards all persons, whatever their race, who devote themselves to the service of God.
After this thought had been expressed by a nomad whom we had met by chance, and who had spoken perhaps thanks only to Russian vodka, all our deliberations, that night and the next day, were based on the idea that we might get into this country, not as ordinary mortals, but by assuming the appearance of persons who are shown special respect there and who have the possibility of going freely everywhere without arousing suspicion.
The following evening, still in the midst of our deliberations, we were sitting in one of the Tekinian chaikanas of New Merv, where two parties of Turkoman libertines were indulging in kaif with batchi, that is with boy dancers, whose chief occupation—authorized by local laws, and also encouraged by the laws of the great Empire of Russia which then had a protectorate over this country—is the same as that carried on in Europe, also legally, by women with yellow tickets; and here in this atmosphere, we categorically decided that Professor Skridlov should disguise himself as a venerable Persian dervish and I should pass for a direct descendant of Mohammed, that is to say, for a Seid.
To prepare ourselves for this masquerade, a long time was necessary, as well as a quiet, isolated spot. And that is why we decided to settle down in the ruins of Old Merv, which met these requirements and where, moreover, we could at times, for a rest, make some excavation
Our preparation consisted n earning a great many sacred Persian chants and instructive sayings of former times, as well as in letting our hair grow long enough for us to look like the people for whom we intended to pass; make-up in this case was quite out of the question.
After we had lived in this way for about a year and were finally satisfied both with our appearance and our knowledge of religious verses and psalms, one day, very early in the morning, we left the ruins of Old Merv, which had come to be like home for us, and going on foot as far as the station of Bairam Ali on the Central Asiatic Railway, we took a train to Chardzhou, and from there set off by boat up the river Amu Darya.
It was on the banks of this river Amu Darya, in ancient times called the Oxus and deified by certain peoples of Central Asia, that the germ of contemporary culture first appeared on earth. And during my journey up this river with Professor Skridlov an incident occurred—extraordinary for Europeans but very characteristic of the local patriarchal morality, as yet unaffected by contemporary civilization—the victim of which was an exceedingly good old Sart. The memory of this incident has often evoked in me the feeling of remorse of conscience, since it was because of us that this good old man lost his money, perhaps forever. I therefore wish to describe this part of our journey to that country, then inaccessible to Europeans, in as much detail as possible and to describe it more or less in the style of a literary school which I happened to study in my youth and which arose and flourished, so it seems, just here on the shores of this great river—a style called the ‘creation of images without words’.
The Amu Darya, which higher up in its course is called the river Pyandzh, has its main sources in the Hindu Kush mountains and flows at the present time into the Aral Sea, though formerly, according to certain historical data, it emptied into the Caspian Sea.
At the period to which the present story relates, this river washed the boundaries of many countries—the former Russia, the Khivan khanate, the Bukharian khanate, Afghanistan, Kafiristan, British India and so on.
It was formerly navigated by rafts of a special kind, but, when the region was conquered by Russia, a river fleet of flat-bottomed steamboats was launched which, besides fulfilling certain military needs, provided passenger and cargo service between the Aral Sea and the upper reaches of the river.
And so I begin, also of course for the purpose of resting, to wiseacre a little in the style of the aforementioned ancient literary school.
Amu Darya ... clear early morning. The mountain peaks are gilded by the rays of the still hidden sun. Gradually the nocturnal silence and the monotonous murmur of the river give place to the cries of awakened birds and animals, to the voices of people, and to the clatter of the steamboat’s wheels.
On both banks the fires which had burned out during the night are being rekindled, spirals begin to rise from the funnel of the boat’s kitchen, mingling with the suffocating smoke of damp saksaul spreading everywhere.
Overnight the banks have noticeably changed in appearance, although the boat has not moved. It is the ninth day since it left Chardzhou for Kerki.
Although on the first two days the boat moved forward very slowly, it was not held up, but on the third day it ran aground and stopped for a whole day and night, until the Amu Darya, by the force of its current, washed away the sandbank and made it possible to move on.
Thirty-six hours later the same thing occurred, and now it is already the third day that the steamer has been stationary, unable to move further.
The passengers and crew are patiently waiting until this wayward river takes pity and lets them proceed.
Here this is quite usual. The river Amu Darya runs through sands for almost its entire course. Having a very strong current and an irregular volume of water, it is always either washing away its unstable banks or depositing sand on them; and its bed is thus constantly changing, with sandbanks forming where before there were whirlpool depths.
Boats going upstream go very slowly, particularly at certain seasons of the year, but downstream they fly like mad, almost without the engine.
One can never determine beforehand, even approximately, the time it will take to travel from one point to another.
Knowing this, people who travel upstream provide themselves for any emergency with enough food for several months.
The time of year in which this journey of ours up the Amu Darya takes place is the least favourable, owing to the low water. Winter is approaching, the rainy season is over, and, in the mountains where the river chiefly takes its source, the thawing of snow has ceased.
Travel is also not particularly agreeable because just at this season the cargo and passenger traffic on these boats is at its height. The cotton has been picked everywhere; the fruit and vegetables of the fertile oases have been gathered and dried; the caracul sheep have been sorted; and the inhabitants of the regions through which the Amu Darya flows are all travelling on it. Some are returning to their villages; others are taking their cheeses to market to exchange them for articles needed for the short winter; still others are going on pilgrimages or to their relatives.
That is why, when we came on board, the boat was so crammed with passengers. Among them are Bukharians, Khivans, Tekkis, Persians, Afghans and representatives of many other Asiatic peoples.
In this picturesque and motley crowd, merchants predominate; some are transporting goods, others going upstream for supplies of cheese.
Here is a Persian, a merchant of dried fruits; here an Armenian going to buy Kirghiz rugs on the spot, and a Polish agent, a cotton-buyer for the firm of Posnansky; here is a Russian Jew, a buyer of caracul skins, and a Lithuanian commercial traveller with samples of picture frames in papier-maché and all kinds of ornaments of gilt-metal set with artificial coloured stones.
Many officials and officers of the frontier guard, and fusiliers and sappers of the Transcaspian Regiment are returning from leaves or from their posts. Here is a soldier’s wife with a nursing baby, going to her husband who has stayed for an extra term of service and has sent for her. Here is a travelling Catholic priest on his official rounds, going to confess Catholic soldiers.
There are also ladies on board. Here is the wife of a colonel, with her lanky daughter, returning home from Tashkent where she has taken her son, a cadet,
to see him off to Orenburg to study in the cadet corps. Here is the wife of a cavalry captain of the frontier guard who has been to Merv to order some dresses at the dressmakers there; and here is a military doctor’s wife escorted by his orderly, travelling from Ashkhabad to visit her husband, who is serving in solitude because his mother-in-law cannot live without ‘society’, which is lacking where he is stationed.
Here is a stout woman with an enormous coiffure undoubtedly of artificial hair, with many rings on her fingers and two enormous brooches on her chest; she is accompanied by two very good-looking girls who call her ‘aunt’, but you can see by everything that they are not at all her nieces.
Here are also many Russian former and future somebodies, going God knows where and God knows why. Also a troupe of travelling musicians with their violins and double-basses.
From the very first day out of Chardzhou, all these people, as it were, sorted themselves out; the so-called intelligentsia, the bourgeoisie and the peasants formed separate groups, where, making acquaintances among themselves, they soon began to feel as though among old friends.
The members of each of these groups began to regard and to act towards the passengers belonging to the other groups either haughtily and disdainfully or timidly and ingratiatingly, but at the same time they did not hinder one another from arranging things each according to his own wishes and habits, and little by little they became so accustomed to their surroundings that it was as though none of them had ever lived in any other way.
Neither the delays in the steamer’s progress nor its crowdedness disturbed anyone; on the contrary, they all accommodated themselves so well that the whole journey was like a series of picnics.
As soon as it became clear that this time the steamer was thoroughly grounded, almost all the passengers gradually went ashore. By the end of the day there appeared on both banks clusters of tents, made from whatever came to hand. Smoke arose from many fires, and, after an evening gaily spent with music and song, most of the passengers stayed on shore overnight.
In the morning the life of the passengers resumes its rhythm of the day before. Some build fires and make coffee, others boil water for green tea, still others go in search of saksaul poles, get ready to go fishing, go out to the steamer and back in small boats, call back and forth between the steamer and shore or from one bank to the other; and all is done calmly and unhurriedly, as everyone knows that, as soon as it is possible to move on, the big bell of the steamer will ring an hour before departure and there will be plenty of time to return on board.
In that part of the boat where we had settled ourselves an old Sart made his place beside us. It was evident that he was a rich man because among his things were many bags of money.
I do not know how it is now, but at that time, in Bukhara and the neighbouring countries, there were no coins of high value.
In Bukhara, for instance, the only coin worth anything was called a tianga—an irregularly cut piece of silver equivalent to approximately half a French franc. Any sum larger than fifty francs had therefore to be carried in special bags, which was very inconvenient, especially for travellers.
If one had thousands in this coinage and had to travel with this money, it was necessary to have literally a score of camels or horses to carry it from place to place. On very rare occasions the following method was used: the quantity of tiangi one wished to transport was given to some Bukharian Jew who gave in exchange a note to some acquaintance of his, also a Jew, who lived at the place to which one was going, and there the latter, deducting something for his trouble, returned the same amount of tiangi.
And so, on arriving at the town of Kerki, which was as far as the boat went, we left our steamer, changed to a hired kobzir16and continued further.
When we were already quite a long way from Kerki and were making a stop at Termez, where Professor Skridlov had gone ashore with some Sart workmen to get provisions in a near-by village, our kobzir was approached by another one carrying five Sarts, who without saying a word began to unload from their kobzir on to ours, twenty-five large sacks filled with tiangi.
At first I did not understand what it was all about; only after the unloading was finished did I gather from the oldest Sart that they had been passengers on our steamer, and that when we had disembarked these sacks of tiangi were found in the place which we had occupied. Certain that we had forgotten them and having learned where we were going, they decided to make haste to catch up with us and give us back the tiangi we had obviously forgotten in the confusion. And he added: ‘I decided to catch up with you without fail because the same thing happened to me once in my life and so I understand very well how disagreeable it is to arrive in a strange place without the necessary tiangi.And as for me, it makes no difference if I arrive in my village a week later; I shall regard it as if our steamer had run aground an extra time.’
I did not know how to reply or what to say to this queer fellow; it was just too unexpected for me and all I could do was pretend that I understood very little Sart and wait for the return of the professor. Meanwhile I offered him and his companions some vodka.
When I saw Skridlov returning, I quickly went ashore to meet him as if to help him carry the provisions, and told him all about it. We decided not to refuse the money, but to find out the address of this still unspoiled man, in order to send him a pesh kesh in gratitude for his trouble, and then to hand over the tiangi to the nearest Russian frontier post, giving the name of the boat and the date of its last trip and explaining in as much detail as possible all the facts which could serve to identify our fellow-traveller, the Sart, who had forgotten these sacks of money on the boat. And so we did.
Soon after this incident, which, in my opinion, could never have occurred among contemporary Europeans, we arrived at the famous town associated with the name of Alexander of Macedonia, which is now nothing more than an ordinary Afghan fort. Here we went ashore and, assuming the roles thought out beforehand, continued our journey on foot.
Passing from one valley to another and coming in contact with many different tribes, we finally came to the central settlement of the Afridis, in a region considered to be the heart of Kafiristan.
On the way, we did everything required of a dervish and a Seïd, that is to say, I sang religious verses in Persian, and the professor, after a fashion, beat out corresponding rhythms on the tambourine, in which he then collected alms.
I shall not describe the rest of our trip and the many extraordinary adventures connected with it, but will go on to the account of our accidental meeting with a certain man, not far from the aforementioned settlement—a meeting, the result of which gave quite another direction to our inner world, and thereby changed all our expectations, intentions and the plan itself of our future movements.
We left the settlement of the Afridis with the intention of proceeding towards Chitral. In the market of the next fairly large place I was accosted by an old man in native dress, who said to me softly in pure Greek: ‘Please do not be alarmed. I quite accidentally learned that you are a Greek. I do not want to know who you are or why you are here, but it would be very pleasant for me to talk with you and see how a fellow-countryman breathes, for it is fifty years since I saw a man who was born in the land where I myself was born.’
By his voice and the expression of his eyes, this old man made such an impression on me that I was immediately filled with a perfect trust in him, as in my own father, and I answered him, also in Greek: ‘To talk here now is, I think, very awkward. We, at least I, may run great danger, so we must think where we can talk freely without fear of undesirable consequences; perhaps one of us can think of some way or find some suitable place, and meanwhile I can only say that I myself will be unspeakably glad of this opportunity, for I am utterly weary of having to deal for so many months with people of alien blood.’
Without replying, he went on his way, and the professor and I went about our business. The next day another man, this time in the habit of a certain monastic or
der well known in Central Asia, placed in my hand, instead of alms, a note.
I read this note when we arrived at the askhana where we had lunch. It was written in Greek and I learned from its contents that the old man of the day before was also one of the, as they were called, ‘self-freed’ monks of this order, and that we would be allowed to come to their monastery since, regardless of nationality, all men were respected there, who strove towards the One God, Creator of all nations and races without distinction.
The next day the professor and I went to this monastery, where we were received by several monks, among them the same old man. After the customary greetings he led us to a hill some distance from the monastery, and there we sat down on the steep bank of a small stream and began to eat the food he had brought with him.
When we were seated, he said: ‘Here no one will hear or see us and we can talk in perfect quiet about whatever pleases our hearts.’
In the course of conversation, it turned out that he was an Italian, but knew Greek because his mother was a Greek, and in his childhood, on her insistence, he had spoken this language almost exclusively.
He had formerly been a Christian missionary and had lived a long time in India. Once, when he had gone on some missionary work into Afghanistan, he was taken prisoner by Afridi tribesmen while travelling through a certain pass.
He was then passed from one to another as a slave, fell into the hands of various groups inhabiting these regions, and finally arrived in this place in the bondage of a certain man.
He had succeeded during his long stay in these isolated countries in gaining the reputation of being an impartial man who humbly recognized and submitted to all the local conditions of life, established by centuries. And so, through the efforts of this last master of his, to whom he had rendered some important service or other, he was given his full freedom and the promise that he could go wherever he pleased in these countries as though he were one of the local power-possessing inhabitants. But just at that time he accidentally came in contact with certain adepts of the ‘World Brotherhood’, who were striving for what he had dreamed of all his life,and, having been admitted to theirbrother-hood, he did not wish to go anywhere else but ever since then had lived with them in their monastery.
Meetings With Remarkable Men Page 26