ler may
stumble upon unawares in this curious region, I may mention a strange
acquaintance I made when travelling on the great plain which stretches
from the Sea of Azof to the Caspian. One day I accidentally noticed on
my travelling-map the name "Shotlandskaya Koldniya" (Scottish Colony)
near the celebrated baths of Piatigorsk. I was at that moment in
Stavropol, a town about eighty miles to the north, and could not
gain any satisfactory information as to what this colony was. Some
well-informed people assured me that it really was what its name
implied, whilst others asserted as confidently that it was simply a
small German settlement. To decide the matter I determined to visit
the place myself, though it did not lie near my intended route, and I
accordingly found myself one morning in the village in question. The
first inhabitants whom I encountered were unmistakably German, and
they professed to know nothing about the existence of Scotsmen in
the locality either at the present or in former times. This was
disappointing, and I was about to turn away and drive off, when a young
man, who proved to be the schoolmaster, came up, and on hearing what I
desired, advised me to consult an old Circassian who lived at the end
of the village and was well acquainted with local antiquities. On
proceeding to the house indicated, I found a venerable old man, with
fine, regular features of the Circassian type, coal-black sparkling
eyes, and a long grey beard that would have done honour to a patriarch.
To him I explained briefly, in Russian, the object of my visit, and
asked whether he knew of any Scotsmen in the district.

"And why do you wish to know?" he replied, in the same language, fixing
me with his keen, sparkling eyes.

"Because I am myself a Scotsman, and hoped to find fellow-countrymen
here."

Let the reader imagine my astonishment when, in reply to this, he
answered, in genuine broad Scotch, "Od, man, I'm a Scotsman tae! My name
is John Abercrombie. Did ye never hear tell o' John Abercrombie, the
famous Edinburgh doctor?"

I was fairly puzzled by this extraordinary declaration. Dr.
Abercrombie's name was familiar to me as that of a medical practitioner
and writer on psychology, but I knew that he was long since dead. When
I had recovered a little from my surprise, I ventured to remark to the
enigmatical personage before me that, though his tongue was certainly
Scotch, his face was as certainly Circassian.

"Weel, wee