Gentleman Jack

by Katy Derbyshire

  The post road then left the Mtkvari River and wound upwards to the Surami Pass (949 m), past the mountain of the same name, which connects the Greater and the Lesser Caucasus and divides Georgia into eastern and western halves. Anne and Ann noticed that the mountain range was a watershed and climatic divide. One of the most beautiful drives I have ever taken in my life – deep rock gorge, the road often a corniche cut out of the rock, and the narrow river filling the whole of the bottom. All sides beautifully wooded – beech, aspens, a few pinus sylvestris on tops of hills. The road lined with the white-cluster flowering red berried maple-leaved shrub I know not at home and with rhododendrum ponticum, the first time I have seen it in these parts. And with oak and beech and hornbeam in abundance, very beautiful. And elm and honeysuckle (and wild pear and apricot trees) and hazels and luxuriant common laurel (first time) and privet. The last 2 and the rhodo., honeysuckle and hazel forming a beautiful thick underwood fringe on each side the road.54

  On 28 June they reached Kutaisi, now the second largest city in Georgia, for Anne Lister the capital of ancient Colchis and le séjour de Medée.55 According to Greek myth, it was the home of King Aeëtes, from whom Jason stole the Golden Fleece. In Kutaisi, Anne and Ann were welcomed by the very amiable Mme Boujourova, the wife of the local Cossack commandant. They stayed in the regional government’s guesthouse for ten days, though it had to be furnished in haste on their arrival. Ann said the other morning she had not felt so well for years. The climate not too hot for her, she likes Koutaisi very much. Kutaisi is located on the Rioni River – the ancient Phasis, which Jason and the Argonauts rowed up – where it flows from the mountains into the wide plain of Colchis, its swamps not drained until the twentieth century. I can’t say I like the climate – too hot and moist – too thickly wooded. But very beautiful and interesting in the highest degree to the traveller.56 As eager to learn as ever, they viewed the sights: Bagrati Cathedral, a ruin at the time but now rebuilt, and the monasteries at Gelati and Motsameta.

  In Kutaisi, the main road with regular posting houses came to an end. The only way on from there was on horseback. The route to the Black Sea would be hard work across the swampy, humid, mosquito-plagued plains, so Anne and Ann decided on a tour of the Greater Caucasus mountain range. Their excursion to the province of Racha-Lechkhumi lasted several weeks and outshone everywhere they had ventured on their trip. Anne and Ann hired a local guide, Adam, who got hold of the necessary equipment and supplies for a region without inns, shops or food stalls. He had a horse of his own for riding and they rented the others from Moshe, a Jewish horse breeder who came along to take care of the animals. There were six travellers in the party: Anne and Ann, George Tchaikin from Moscow, the Cossack from Tbilisi and Adam and Moshe from Kutaisi. They left the large part of their luggage, including books and fur boots, with the pregnant maid Domna at the Boujourovs’ home. Their journey began on 9 July 1840, heading northeast. At 11:25 we stopped at a shady grassy spot close to the highroad and the river. Breakfasted very well on cold tea, 2 cold boiled eggs, a piece of bread and butter and half a cucumber. Breakfast over at 12:25. I sat on my English saddle-bags and wrote till 1 ½, Ann asleep on the grass (on her cloaks). Anne considered their resting group extremely picturesque – our horses grazing beside us, our suite talking at a little distance behind us. Adam wears a Circassian cap, black wool fringe and yellow top. Our Jew a black lamb’s wool Persian cap, otherwise clad à la Georgienne. Our Cossack in uniform, blue light short jacket, blue trousers and white casquette. George in white trousers and short yellowish-green coat with courier’s belt and kindjal [a dagger]. Ann in her habit and I in my pelisse and black tawny cloak and dark blue cloth (Jupp, London) casquette, and Ann and I men’s Moscow boots. [...] A nice breath of air now and then. F 82° [27.8 C] at 2 pm in my bag in the shade and 90° [32.2 °C] where I am sitting reading at 3:20. In another hour the heat will be abating and we can be off.57 The path led along a river through the Colchis forest, blessed with such abundant vegetation that it seemed almost tropical. An amazed Anne recorded the circumference of particularly magnificent trees using her measuring tape.

  Their documents from the authorities entitled them to demand free accommodation from every local administrator. Anne had anticipated empty barns or huts, but Adam always went directly to the best house in each village, which might be a good wood house or indeed a very poor little place.58 They often got a room to themselves, but they sometimes had to share the house’s one room with an entire family. On one occasion there was no possibility of staying there – full of people ill in ‘the hot fever’, the 2 or 3 that came to the door pale as ghosts.59 Food had to be bought from the locals, often enough forced out of them – even silver coins were only of limited value to these mountain peasants. In their quarters, they were usually given the best people had, sometimes even treated to feasts with several courses and a choice of wines. They were also entertained in unusual ways. We had a tame bear-cub in that ate out of our hand.60

  Via Satsire, the Nakerala Pass (1,217 m) and Khotevi, they reached Nikortsminda, where they admired the stonemasonry on the church, the richest and best done we have seen.61 Anne and Ann probably exchanged amused glances when they discovered the curious fresco of Adam and Eve to the left of the entrance, both naked, androgynous and barely distinguishable from one another. Five days after setting out, they arrived in Oni (800 m) on the River Rioni. Various factors, including decent guestrooms in the so-called palace, a house made of stone, and a market – some of the women were afraid when we touched their things62 – made the town the perfect base camp for expeditions to the mountains.

  Their first destination was the source of the Rioni, on the main crest of the Greater Caucasus, surrounded by majestic mountains. They rode through deciduous forest clogged with azalea bushes to Utsera (950 m), where they were given an escort of four armed men the next morning as their route took them into the border region to Ossetia – a war zone then, as now. Via Ghebi (1,337 m) they reached a simple military camp high in the mountains, after nightfall. It was the first time they had had to sleep outdoors on the whole trip. A few long thin poles set up meeting in a point and a few small branches thrown over them to the north and a fire in front – and this our bivouac for the night. I kept my thoughts to myself, set the Cossack to bring 3 pieces of wood and arranged Ann’s bed very fairly. No wood convenient for me so spread my burca [a shepherd’s coat] and saddle cloth on the ground, put on my light cloak and wrapped myself up in my mackintosh for the night. Ann had an egg and I my flat cake from Rebi and a bit of cheese and supped very well.

  The next morning, they set out at four with twenty-one armed peasants, heading for the source of the Rioni. By six, the path was too difficult even for the horses, and they had to fight their way through the underbrush on foot. It took them an hour to get there. The source is from under a glacier, and 2 picturesque high falls of water, the one double or more the other. [...] A ‘cirque’ formed by 2 mountains, having the glacier on the col between them. [...] Left Ann almost immediately and actually at the source at 7:55. [...] Very rapid fall from the glacier all the way down to where Ann is sketching. They were back at base by 10:10 and paid the men two silver roubles, with which they seemed well satisfied. [...] Good honest mountaineers – I would go all the Caucasus over with them. They returned to Ghebi that evening, sleeping in an open barn and receiving plentiful attention, with crowds of people to look at us.63 Back in Oni the next day and without a maid, Anne was forced to wash her own laundry. First time in my life64 – at the age of forty-nine.

  A second major excursion from Oni took them to Sachkhere on the Kvirila, which they followed upstream; crossed today Kvirila 29 times and Djouroudja 19 times. [...] My boots wet though I held up my feet as high as I could.65 Although Anne discovered beautifully located monasteries, archaic cavern homes and countless natural phenomena on this trekking tour – sights hardly any western Europeans had ever seen, let alone women – she never wanted to stay long in one place. Sh
e cursed the four-hour siesta that her men insisted on for themselves and the horses, feeling she was being robbed of valuable daylight hours; the only thing she could do during this long rest was write her diary. She ate little, complained a great deal and eventually went out walking on her own in the hot midday weather. On one occasion she tried to climb into an overgrown castle. Scrambled up with difficulty, but the hole did not furnish means of getting into the castle. Scrambling down again took me 20 minutes – I had had 50 minutes of toil for nothing. Back to Ann at 2. A man with a ladder waiting to go with us into the castle. Broiling walk up along the traverses to the west end and in 10 minutes in the castle. Five old pieces of cannon, one with an inscription in Georgian. [...] Very interesting old castle. Off at 3, back to the tree at 3:18, soaked through, my mouth quite parched. The 2 men (George and Adam) 1⁄2 undressed, smoking with heat. We had full sun upon us the latter part of the way, the heat near our walnut tree at 3:35 was F. 104 ½ [40.3 °C].66 And yet Anne was surprised that Ann bears the heat with much less thirst and much better than I, but I am improving. Left off my woollen undersleeves this morning.67

  In general Ann Walker coped better with life in the wilderness than Anne Lister. She liked to set out in the cool early morning, ate well at midday, took a nap and then found a shady spot to sketch and was refreshed and ready to ride on in the late afternoon. Unlike Anne, she was a good horsewoman, knew how to deal with horses and enjoyed their company. The two of them seem to have got on better in the remote mountain world, especially as Ann Walker now experienced her partner as caring, perhaps for the first time. On more than one occasion, they lost their way and rode through the pitch-black night. Anne called every now and then to make sure Ann was close behind me. Being a gentleman, Anne always insisted on giving Ann the better place to sleep – 1 divan (carpeted) for Ann and a long low table for me68 – and gave her the best pickings of their meals.

  Back at Oni, two of their horses went lame. They hoped to find replacements in Lailashi, thirty-five miles to the west, but could only buy one horse in the poor little place.69 Adam, George and Moshe refused to set out for Svanetia. Anne Lister had to concede defeat and they returned to Kutaisi along the beautiful Rioni valley after twenty-six days in the mountains.

  Kutaisi was boiling in the summer heat and Anne Lister was in a rush to get away again. They bought four new horses and took their leave from Moshe and also from George, who was allowed to stay and recover with his pregnant wife Domna until they all planned to return to Moscow together in a few weeks’ time. Only Adam, their guide from Kutaisi, and the Cossack officer from Tbilisi stayed with Anne and Ann, although they had no common language. They rode to Zugdidi to visit Davit and Ekaterina Dadiani. Along the way, they took a detour to the Martvili monastery, not finding it until late at night in pouring rain, and to Nokalakevi, equally difficult to reach along wild paths the next day. There, the aged Prince Bijan Dadiani showed them a very overgrown but spectacular acropolis, which has since been identified as the ancient town of Archaeopolis. They spent the evening chatting with the princess, who was so fascinated by Anne that the next morning she watched me dressing through the little lattice close above where I slept. Hung up my cloak against her pretending not to see her.70 Anne was not interested in the women of rural Georgia, of whom even some Christians wore the white thing that when pulled up covers the mouth.71 These Georgian Mingrelian ladies sit squat all day on their carpets doing nothing, and are queer dowdy-looking figures. Crimson or white chemise under their long trailing gowns. Their breasts wobbling about like a couple of bladders.72

  To prevent them from losing their way again, Prince Bijan sent his servant Davit along with the Englishwomen to Zugdidi, where they arrived on the evening of 8 August. At the Dadianis’ palace, the rather unkempt travellers had an opportunity to make themselves presentable. Our room carpetted with Persian carpets. Several menservants in waiting and 2 nice little chambermaids arranging our 2 comfortable sofas to perfection – pillows, coverlets. After five weeks in the wilderness, they were astounded by their room. Silver ewer and pitcher. Large table, little round toilet-table and good looking-glass standing on it, 4 chairs, and 2 armchairs, luxurious, and 2 waxlights burning. Plus soap, combs and brushes, dressing-gowns and nightcaps (very pretty), pomatum and eau-de-cologne. Luxurious wash and flea-hunt (brought with us in our clothes) last night, and not bit at all. Ravenous, they pounced upon the delicious bread and fresh butter provided as an appetiser and then could not eat the unexpected supper that came next. Have not had so comfortable a bed and room since leaving Moscow. They stayed in bed the next morning. Ann had her hair done and then I had mine done very nicely. Our boots cleaned and pelisses brushed. Then they could finally greet their hosts.

  However, the young Ekaterina Dadiani was looking pale and emaciated.73 Her firstborn daughter was so sick that the Dadianis had sent for a German doctor from Kutaisi. Anne and Ann met him over a Russian lunch at two, along with two more Dadiani ladies, the wife of a Russian officer and the French agriculturalist Joseph Liétaud, who was to modernise the young prince’s estate. Another guest, an unnamed German botanist, was ill in bed and could not join them for the meal. The company exchanged political news in French, snapped up avidly by Davit Dadiani, whose principality, Mingrelia, was under threat from Russia’s territorial claims. Afterwards, Anne and Ann strolled around the large botanical garden that the Dadianis were having planted.

  The princess sent her apologies at tea. Anne and Ann had landed in a place as unhealthy as it was luxurious. Zugdidi is located on a plain – which was still swamps at that time – only 18 miles from the Black Sea. It is the climate that so disagrees with the little Dadiani daughter, a fine little child. I advised the princess to change air – go up to Lailashi.74 Anne could barely stand Zugdidi; hot and muggy, while sitting in my pelisse from 4 to 7 pm, in a profuse perspiration, not a dry stitch on me.75 As Ann Walker, too, was off colour, the two agreed to break off their journey to the Black Sea and instead ride into the mountains again, trying to find a way back to Kutaisi. They set out at five the next afternoon. Ekaterina Dadiani gave them 6 salted cucumbers and a large fresh cheese and 8 or 10 rolls or more and 2 bottles red wine for myself and 2 white for Ann and 6 or 8 wax candles and fresh cucumbers and apples.76

  They rode northeast, making do a few hours later with very modest accommodation at a farm in Lia. There too, the children especially, and the men and women, look pale and yellow and unhealthy in this moist hot bottom valley. As they had to share the room with the family, A– awoke me before six, anxious to be off.77 Less than an hour later, they reached the Enguri River and rode along its broad, bouldery bedded, islandy, streamy course up the valley. They stayed in Jvari, at that time a dispersed village, from nine to two, breakfasted in an empty hut and had a tolerably comfortable wash – perhaps fearing contagion. Today, Europe’s highest dam wall rises behind Jvari, holding back the Enguri in its narrow ravine to form a long lake. We do not know whether that ravine was impassable at the time or whether Anne and Ann got lost, as they so often did. They left the river course and arrived in the village of Satchino. Rain set in at five that afternoon, not heavy, but likely to continue, and all our 3 men have left us to seek somebody or something. Adam came back in ½ hour. Ann had had an egg beaten up, and I had the things off my horse and done up my mackintosh. David does not know the road – get a man to go with us to the village. An hour lost here. Off to the village, Djakali [Jgali], at 6:05 and arrived at 6 3⁄4. 2 cottages. Arrange ourselves in the Indian corn barn (a little wicker place perhaps 4 1⁄2 by 3 yards). Spread our burcas on straw and now, 8:25, I have just writ the last 19 lines. High hills north, and, within, ridges of wooded hill rising every now and then into little wooded conical summits. The sides of the hills furrowed, and little conical summits on the ridges of the sides. Tea etc. now at 8:25. Lay down at 9 1⁄2.78

  20 Anne Lister’s last journal page, 11 August 1840; West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, SH: 7/ML/E/24.

 
; Those were the last words Anne Lister wrote in her diary. It was 11 August 1840. Six weeks later, she was dead. What happened between these dates is unknown. Did she feel faint and unable to continue writing? According to Muriel Green, they reached Lailashi in Lechkhumi again on 31 August. From there, they returned to Kutaisi by the same route as four weeks previously. George and Domna were waiting there and the German doctor summoned to Zugdidi by Ekaterina Dadiani practised there. But the doctor could have helped neither the child nor Anne Lister, should he have met her. Her obituary notice dates her death to Tuesday September 22, at Koutais, of ‘La fièvre chaude’.79

  Fever was a blanket term for various diseases at the time. The illness lasting several weeks might suggest typhus, but Anne Lister may also have contracted severe malaria in the swampy Colchis region. She had demanded a great deal of her body on the journey. As persistent and tough as she was, she had always tended to overestimate herself. In the Lake District, at the Great Saint Bernhard Pass, on Monte Perdido, on Vignemale, and most recently on the frozen Volga, Anne Lister had challenged fate. Mr Duffin had been proved right: her mind wore her body out.

  THE WIDOW

  We are informed that the remains of this distinguished lady have been embalmed, and that her friend and companion, Miss Walker, is bringing them home by way of Constantinople, for interment in the family vault,1 the Halifax Guardian wrote on 31 October 1840 in its notice of Anne Lister’s death, reported back by Ann Walker. Ann was presumably fulfilling Anne’s last wish; otherwise she would hardly have submitted to the long torture of transferring a corpse from Kutaisi to Halifax over several months. Once the body had been embalmed – an art practised in the region since ancient times – it was most likely bedded on sawdust in a zinc coffin, and then soldered shut.