Calmucks

“ Being exclusively occupied in raising cattle, the life of the Calmuck is nomad. A khoton, which is a commune, more or less numerous, composed of many families united by bonds of relationship, never remains more than two or three weeks in the same place. Transmigration from one place to another is a real feast to the Calmucks. All their goods, including their tent, are loaded upon the back of a camel, and covered over with a piece of drapery if the family is in easy circumstances. The women and girls, in holiday dress, as well as the young boys, drive the flocks. ”

“ All have enormous ears, projecting strongly from the head, and their hair is invariably black. The Kalmucks are generally small, but with figures well rounded, and an easy carriage. Very few deformed persons are seen among them, for with more good sense than ourselves, they leave the development of their children's frames entirely to nature, and never put any kind of garment on them until the age of nine or ten. No sooner are they able to walk, than they mount on horseback, and apply themselves with all their hearts to wrestling and riding, the chief amusements of the tribes. ”

“ Chambers describes the Calmuck as short in stature, with broad shoulders, a large head, small black eyes, always appearing to be half shut, and slanting downward toward the nose, which is flat with wide nostrils, hair black, coarse, and straight, complexion deeply swarthy, while his ugliness is the index of the purity of his descent. ”

“ Like all inhabitants of vast plains, the Kalmucks have exceedingly keen sight. An hour after sunset they can still distinguish a camel at a distance of three miles or more. Very often when I perceived nothing but a point barely visible on the horizon, they clearly made out a horseman armed with his lance and gun. They have also an extraordinary faculty for wending their way through their pathless wildernesses. Without the least apparent mark to guide them, they traverse hundreds of miles with their flocks, without ever wandering from the right course. ”

“ All the Kalmucks have eyes set obliquely, with eyelids little opened, scanty black eyebrows, noses deeply depressed near the forehead, prominent cheek-bones, spare beards, thin moustaches, and a brownish yellow skin. The lips of the men are thick and fleshy, but the women, particularly those of high rank, have heart-shaped mouths of no common beauty. ”

“ Parties of home-going school-children backed on to the loose gravel at the roadside, bobbing curtsies or pulling forelocks, staring at the young man and his companion, curious and half afraid. For in the youthful, bucolic mind a mystery surrounded Richard Calmady and his goings and comings, causing him to rank with crowned heads, ghosts, the Book of Daniel, funerals, the Northern Lights, and kindred matters of dread fascination. ”

“ The morning sun emerges safe and sound from the flames of the morning aurora; the evening sun passes through those flames, and dies.
The tenth Calmuc tale gives us the myth of the two brothers; the rich one avaricious and wicked, and the poor one virtuous. The story ends in a manner analogous to that of the dying adulterer, who, as we have seen in the Tuti-Name, bites off his mistress's nose.
[Pg 131]
The eleventh story is a variation of that of the lover, or husband, who abandons or kills his wife, after having despoiled her of her riches ”

“ When, on a journey, a Calmuck perceives a certain bird which he esteems to be a good augury, he rejoices in this conjuncture, does not fail to manifest his satisfaction, and bows himself three times. As soon as he perceives a hare, on the contrary, he utters a cry, pursues it, and strikes a blow in the air with his stick, in order to exorcise the misfortune which might happen. ”

“ The analogy, perhaps, might not have been perceived by anyone less intimately acquainted with Calumet, or by anyone who understood a horse less, but she saw it, and knowing Calumet's innate savagery, his primal stubbornness, his passions, the naked soul of the man, she began to feel that the black was waging a hopeless struggle. He could never win unless some accident happened. ”

“ We frequently questioned the Kalmucks respecting their wintering under a tent, and they always assured us that their kabitkas perfectly protected them from the cold. By day they keep up a fire with reeds and dried dung; and at night, when there remains only clear coal, they stop up all the openings to confine the heat. ”

“ Julius March looked on in pleased surprise at the exploits of his former pupil. While Ludovic Quayle, with raised eyebrows and half-tender, half-ironical amusement relaxing the corners of his remarkably beautiful mouth, would say:—
"Calmady, you really are a shameless glutton! How many more immortal glories, any one of which would satisfy an ordinary man, do you propose to swallow?"
"I suppose it's a bad year," Richard would answer. "The others can't amount to very much, or, needless to say, I shouldn't walk over the course." ”

“ And in the full glare of it stood a young man—his head, with its cap of close-cropped curls proudly distinguished as that of some classic hero, his features the beautiful features of Katherine Calmady, his height but two-thirds the height a man of his make should be, his face drawn and livid as that of a corpse, his arms hanging down straight at his sides, his hands only just not touching the marble quarries of the floor on either side of him. ”

“ While a larger, and it may be added less distinguished, section of society, greedy of intimacy with whoso, or whatsoever, might represent the fashion of the hour, crowded upon their heels. Invitations showered down thick as snowflakes in January. To get Sir Richard and Lady Calmady was to secure the success of your entertainment, whatever that entertainment might be—to secure it the more certainly because the two persons in question exercised a rather severe process of selection, and were by no means to be had for the asking. ”

“ The Kalmucks, all of them nomades, are exclusively engaged in rearing cattle, and know nothing whatever of agriculture. They breed camels, oxen, sheep, and above all, horses, of which they have an excellent description, small, but strong, agile, and of great endurance. I have ridden a Kalmuck horse often eighteen and even twenty-five leagues without once dismounting. The Russian cavalry is mounted chiefly on horses from the Caspian steppes: the average price of a good horse is from 80 to 100 rubles. ”

“ A ludicrous misadventure that befel our dragoman, Anthony, amused us a good deal. Curiosity prompting him to ride a camel, he asked one of the Kalmucks to lend him his beast, and the request being complied with, he bestrode the saddle, pleased with the novelty of the experiment, and quite at a loss to know why the Cossacks and camel-drivers laughed among themselves as he mounted. But as soon as the beast began to move, a change came over his face, and he speedily began to bawl out for help. The fact is, one must be almost a Kalmuck to be able to endure the trotting of a camel ”

“ It is a belief of the Kalmucks that this gloomy spot is inhabited by Shaitan, and they regard it with superstitious dread. Certainly, it is eery enough to be haunted by many a ghostly legend.
Next day, taking a different track, Mr. Atkinson descended the valley of the Tourgau, listening to the music of the stream as it raced over its rocky bed with p. 205the speed of a “swift Camilla.” At a point where it suddenly swept round the base of some cliffs of slate, the Kalmuck guide said that it might be forded, though the passage was very difficult. ”

“ His eyes fell from contemplation of the glories of the window to that of the long, straight folds of the cassock which clothed him. It was hardly the garb in which a man goes forth to woo! Then he looked at Lady Calmady—she altogether seductive in her innocence and in her wistful mockery as she leaned against the jamb of the door.
"You are mistaken, dear Katherine," he said. "It has always been too late." ”

“ The rapid movement, the moist, pungent odour of the woodland, the rhythmical trot of the horses, the rattle of the splinter-bar chains as the traces slackened going downhill, above all the presence of the man beside him, were pleasantly stimulating to Richard Calmady. The boy was still a prey to much innocent enthusiasm. It appeared to him, watching Ormiston's handling of the reins and whip, there was nothing this man could not do, and do skilfully, yet all with the same easy unconcern. ”

“ Richard ceased to look at Lady Calmady. He looked away through the open window into the serene sky of the summer night, a certain hunger in his expression not altogether pleasant to witness.
"Fortunately," he continued, with something between a laugh and a sneer, "there is a mighty army of women—always has been—who don't come under the head of innocent, young girls, though some of them have plenty of breeding of a kind. They attach no superstitious importance to the marriage ceremony. ”

“ Pray let Lady Calmady know how really delighted everybody is to hear she and Sir Richard will be up this season. I do trust, as I am such a near neighbour, that if there is anything I can do for her, either now, or later when they are settling, she will not hesitate to let me know. It would be such a sincere pleasure to me. Mr. Barking is too busy with tiresome, parliamentary committees to be able to allow himself more than a week at Easter. ”

“ Thus did the bitter winds of truth, which blow forever across the world, first touch Richard Calmady, cutting his poor boyish pride as with a whip. But he was very young. And the young, mercifully, know no such word as the inevitable; so that the wind of truth is ever tempered for them—the first smart of it over—by the sunshine of ignorant and unlimited hope. ”

“ For the years had dealt kindly with Katherine Calmady. Not the great sorrows of life, or its great sacrifices, but fretfulness, ignoble worries, sordid cares, are that which draw lines upon a woman's face and harshen her features. At six and thirty Lady Calmady's skin was smooth and delicate, her colour, still clear and softly bright. ”

“ In most of these conveyances the thongs are tied across one way only, from short pole to short pole, forming a ladder-like arrangement.
Fig. 175.—Travois ready for camping outfit.
Fig. 176.—Different parts of straw calumet.
Fig. 177.—Calumet finished.
A chief must always have his
[119]
Calumet,
or "pipe of peace," to smoke and pass around the council circle, when all the leaders of the different tribes meet to talk over important matters concerning the welfare of their people. Real calumets are generally large and of goodly length, some of them being four feet long. ”

“ Thus did Richard Calmady reason with and essay to solace himself for the fact that some fruits are forbidden to him who holds honour dear. Reasoned with and solaced himself to such good purpose, as he fondly imagined, that when, an hour and a half later, he established himself in the trainer's dining-room, a mighty breakfast outspread before him, he felt quite another man. Racing cups adorned the chimneypiece and sideboard, portraits of race-horses and jockeys adorned the walls. ”

“ When the ram p. 199had been flayed, the skin was hoisted on a pole above the framework of the bulayan, and placed with its head to the east. The tambourine was loudly beaten, and the wild chant continued. Then the flesh was cooked in the large caldron, and all the tribe partook of the dainty—“there was a sound of revelry by night.”
The Kalmuck priest wears a leather coat, over the laps of which impend hundreds of strips, with leather tassels on the breast. He fastens a girdle round his waist ”

“ For, notwithstanding the philosophic tone he had adopted with Lady Calmady in speaking of that friendship which, if not nipped in the bud, might have reached perils of too luxuriant blossoming, the would-be saint and the natural man, the pilgrim on the highroad to Perfection and that very inconvenient animal "the wild bull in a net," kept up warfare within Richard Calmady. ”

“ Another impulse moved Calumet. He decided to have a talk with the man in order to learn, if possible, something of the life his father had led during his absence. He kicked his pony in the ribs and rode toward the man, the animal traveling at a slow chop-trot. ”

“ Richard Calmady almost groaned.
His own helplessness to help her cut him to the quick. Wealth, and an inherent graciousness of disposition, had always made it so simple to be of service and of comfort to those about him. It was so natural to rule, to decide, to alleviate, to give little trouble to others and take a good deal of trouble on their behalf, that his present and final incapacity in any measure to shield even Katherine, the woman he worshipped, amazed him. ”

“ It was not without a movement of inward thanksgiving that, the festivities connected with Sir Richard and Lady Calmady's home-coming being over, Julius March returned to his labours in the Brockhurst library. Humanity at first hand, whatever its social standing or its pursuits, was, in truth, always slightly agitating to him. ”

“ And Richard Calmady sickened yet more, recognising in that a parable of perpetual application. For are there not always other cases? The tragedy of the individual life reaching its climax seems, to the chief actor, worthy to claim and hold universal attention. Yet the sun never stands still in heaven, nor do the footsteps of men tarry upon earth. No one person may take up too much space, too much time. The movement of things is not stayed. ”