I wept not for the death of the
child, but for the deep grief of the afflicted parent.
Leaving this place of mourning, I visited some Greek and Armenian
families. I was received in spacious rooms, which were fitted up in
the most simple manner. Along the walls stood painted wooden
benches partly covered with rugs. On these benches the people sit,
eat, and sleep. The women wear Grecian dresses.
European and Asiatic costumes are seen so frequently together in the
streets, that neither the one nor the other appears peculiar. The
greatest novelty to me, in this respect, was the Circassian dress.
It consists of wide trousers, short coats full of folds, with narrow
sashes, and breast pockets for from six to ten cartridges; tight
half-boots, with points turned inwards, and close-fitting fur caps.
The more wealthy wore coats of fine dark-blue cloth, and the edges
were ornamented with silver.
The Circassians are distinguished from all other Caucasian people by
their beauty. The men are tall, have very regular features and
great ease in their motions. The women are of a more delicate
build; their skin is whiter, their hair dark, their features
regular, their figures slender, with their busts well developed: in
the Turkish harems they are considered the greatest beauties. I
must confess, however, that I have seen many handsomer women in the
Persian harems than in the Turkish, even when they contained
Circassians.
The Asiatic women, when in the streets here, wrap themselves in
large white mantles; many cover the mouth as well, and some few the
remainder of the face.
Of the domestic life of the Russian officials and officers I cannot
say much. I had, indeed, a letter to the chancellor director, Herr
von Lille, and to the governor, Herr von Jermaloff; but both
gentlemen were not much pleased with me - my free expression of
opinion, perhaps, did not suit them. I made no scruple of speaking
my mind with regard to the ill-regulated posting establishments, and
the miserable roads. I, moreover, related my imprisonment, with a
few comments; and, what crowned all, I said that I had intended to
have gone on from here across the Caucasus to Moscow and
Petersburgh, but that I had been completely deterred from doing so
by my short experience of travelling in the country, and would take
the shortest road to get beyond the frontier as soon as possible.
If I had been a man and had spoken so, I should probably have been
treated with a temporary residence in Siberia.
Herr von Lille, however, always received me with politeness when I
called on him for the purpose of having my passport prepared. The
governor did not treat me with a like consideration; first he put me
off from one day to another, then it pleased the mighty man to pass
two days in the country.
