Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1915 — Among the Tent Dwellers [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Among the Tent Dwellers

IN HIS travels through Asiatic Russia, the land of Cqpsack and Kirghiz, Stephen Graham found much of interest, and In Country Life he thus tells some of his experiences : I Issued forth from Kopal on a broad moorland road, and after several hours’ upland tramping came to the Cossack village of Arazan —a typical willow-shaded settlement with irrigation streamlets rushing along the channels between the roadway and the cottages. In the pleasant coolness of five o’clock sunshine I passed out at the other end of the only street of the village and climbed up into the hills beyond. I turned a tains, descended by little green gorges into strange valleys and climbed out of them, to high ridges and cold, windswept heights. All about me grew desolate and rugged. It was touching to look back at the little collection of homes I had left —the compact little island of trees In the ocean of moorland below me and behind me —and to loi>k forward to the pass where all seemed dreadful and forbidding in front of me. In such a view I spread my-bed and slept

Next morning, with great difficulty I collected roots and withered grass enough to boil a pot and make my morning tea. While sitting there, the large raindrops came, and. they made deep black spots in the dust of the road, the lightning flashed across my knife, the thunder rplled bowlders about the mountains and I sped to a cave to avoid a drenching shower. In a Celebrated District.

I was in a somewhat celebrated district.' The Pass and Gorge of Abakum are among the sights of Seven Rivers land and are visited by Russian holi-day-makers and picnickers. All the rocks are scrawled with the names of bygone visitors, and by that fact alone you know the place has a name and is accounted beautiful. When the rain ceased and I ventured out of the cave again I saw a Russian at work writing his name. He had a stick dipped in the pitch with which the axles of his cart were oiled, and the wheels of the cart were nearly off for him to get it. For the first time I saw how these Intensely black scrawls were written on the rocks.

It was a pleasant noontide along the narrow road between crumbling indigo rocks and heaped debris. The stony slopes were rain-washed, the air fresh, and all along the way were dwarf rose bushes, very thorny hut covered with scores of bright yellow blossoms on little red stems. The jagged highway climbed again high up—to the sky, and gave me a Vision of a new land, the vast dead plain of Northern Semiretchie and of Southern Siberia. Northward to the horizon lay deserts, salt marshes and vast lakes with uninhabited shores, withered moors and wilted lowlands.

From that height, which was evidently the famous pass, I descended into-the pretty gorge of Abakum. The road was steep and narrow, the cliffs on each side sheer. A little foaming stream runs down from the cliffs, over rubbish heaps of rocks, and accompanies tbe highways in an artificially devised channel. A strange gateway has been formed in s thin partition of rock, and through this runs the stream below and the telegraph wire overhead —there is a footway, but carts are 'obliged to make a detour. At this gateway I saw the first intimation of Siberia and a reflection of the American spirit. Commercial travelers had scrawled: BUY PROVODNIK GALOSHES AT OMSK and BUY INDIAN TEA AND GET RICH. On the Road to Sarkand.

It Is a green and joyous road from Ahnfcutn eastward to. Sarkand, keeping to the mountain slopes and not faring forth upon the scorched plain that lies away northward. I did not repent that the cross-roads tempted me to go eastward hugging the mountains. Long green grass waved on each side of the* road, and in the grass blue larkspur and immense yellow hollyhocks. I was in the land where the Kirghis has his summer pasture, and often I came upon whole clans that had just pitched their tents. It was a many-colored picture of camels, bulls and horses, of sheep swarming among children, of kittens playing with one another's tails, of tents whose frame-work only was as yet put up, of heaps of felt carpet on tbe grass, of old wooden chests and antediluvian pots and jugs of sagging leather lying promiscuously to

made. Qn this road the Chinese jugglers overtook me and camped very near where I slept one night. I was amused to see the old conjurer who had juggled the steaming samovaf put of thin air hunting mournfully for bita of wood and roots to make that same samovar boil in real earnest. Next day I came to the village of Jaiman Terekti and its remarkable scenery. The River.Baskau flows between extraordinary banks, great bare rocks all squared and architectural in appearance giving the impression r Immense ancient fortresses over the stream. These squared and shelved rocks are characteristic of the countryside and the geological formations, and they give much grandeur to what otherwise are quiet comers. Among the Cossacks. Lepsinsk is what the Russians call a medvezhy ugolok, a bear’s corner, a place where in winter the wolves

roam the main streets as if they did not distinguish it from their peculiar haunts. It is by post road 945 miles from Tashkent on the one hand and 1,040 miles frdm Omsk on the other — roughly, 1,000 miles from a railway station. It is high up. on the mountains on the Mongolian frontier, and lives a life of its own—almost completely unaware of what is happening in Russia and in Europe —a window on to Mongolia, a local wit has called It—a ground-glass window. Lepsinsk is a Cossack settlement. All the young men are horsemen, have to serve their term dn war and are liable to military service without any .exemption or exception. All Cossack families and Cossack villages are brought up on these terms. The children ride bareback as soon as they can walk and jump. The little boys get their elder brothers’ uniforms cut down to wear. I spent many hours with the Cossacks in the Lepsa valley," calling at cottages for food. A feckless folk you would call them, by the sight of their homes. The women dre very lazy and go to sleep after dinner, leaving all the dirty dishes on the table for 50,000 flies to fluster around.

Next day I went deep into the desert, into a land of snakes, eagles, snipe and lizards. I got-my noonday meal of koumiss in a Kirghiz yurt, borrowed a horse with which to get across the difficult fords, one of black, reed-grown mud, the other of swiftflowing water. All day I plowed through ankle-deep sand, and but for the fact that the sun was obscured by clouds I should have suffered much from heat As it was, the duet and sand-laden wind was very trying. Early in the. evening I resolved to stop for the day, and found shelter in one of twenty tents air pitched beside one another in a pleasant green pasture land which lay between two'bends of the river—a veritable oasis. : It was a good resting place. An old man spread for me carpets and rugs and bade me sleep, and I lay down for an hour. In the meantime tea was made for me from some chips of Mongolian brick tea. The old Kirghis took a black block of *his solidified tea dust and cut it with an old razor. After tea I went out and sat on a mound among the cattle, and watched the children drive in sheep and goats and cows, and the wives milk them

IN THE OPEN BAZAAR

KIRGHIZ GRANDMOTHER