. The
shadow of the mountains reached for several miles over the steppe. The
steppe, the opposite side of the river, and the roads, were all
deserted. If very occasionally mounted men appeared, the Cossacks in
the cordon and the Chechens in their aouls (villages) watched them with
surprised curiosity and tried to guess who those questionable men could
be. At nightfall people from fear of one another flock to their
dwellings, and only birds and beasts fearless of man prowl in those
deserted spaces. Talking merrily, the women who have been tying up the
vines hurry away from the gardens before sunset. The vineyards, like
all the surrounding district, are deserted, but the villages become
very animated at that time of the evening. From all sides, walking,
riding, or driving in their creaking carts, people move towards the
village. Girls with their smocks tucked up and twigs in their hands run
chatting merrily to the village gates to meet the cattle that are
crowding together in a cloud of dust and mosquitoes which they bring
with them from the steppe. The well-fed cows and buffaloes disperse at
a run all over the streets and Cossack women in coloured beshmets go to
and fro among them. You can hear their merry laughter and shrieks
mingling with the lowing of the cattle. There an armed and mounted
Cossack, on leave from the cordon, rides up to a hut and, leaning
towards the window, knocks. In answer to the knock the handsome head of
a young woman appears at the window and you can hear caressing,
laughing voices. There a tattered Nogay labourer, with prominent
cheekbones, brings a load of reeds from the steppes, turns his creaking
cart into the Cossack captain's broad and clean courtyard, and lifts
the yoke off the oxen that stand tossing their heads while he and his
master shout to one another in Tartar. Past a puddle that reaches
nearly across the street, a barefooted Cossack woman with a bundle of
firewood on her back makes her laborious way by clinging to the fences,
holding her smock high and exposing her white legs. A Cossack returning
from shooting calls out in jest: 'Lift it higher, shameless thing!' and
points his gun at her. The woman lets down her smock and drops the
wood. An old Cossack, returning home from fishing with his trousers
tucked up and his hairy grey chest uncovered, has a net across his
shoulder containing silvery fish that are still struggling; and to take
a short cut climbs over his neighbour's broken