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Updated: June 22, 2025
For one instant it seemed to him that he was moving and that the Terek with the drifting wood remained stationary. Again he peered out. One large black log with a branch particularly attracted his attention. The tree was floating in a strange way right down the middle of the stream, neither rocking nor whirling.
Leaning on the railing of the tower and screwing up his eyes, he looked now far into the distance beyond the Terek, now down at his fellow Cossacks, and occasionally he addressed the latter. The sun was already approaching the snowy range that gleamed white above the fleecy clouds. The clouds undulating at the base of the mountains grew darker and darker.
'Yes, Daddy, but you see I have to buy a horse; and they say you can't get one the other side of the river under fifty rubles, and mother has not yet sold our wine. 'Eh, we didn't bother, said the old man; 'when Daddy Eroshka was your age he already stole herds of horses from the Nogay folk and drove them across the Terek. Sometimes we'd give a fine horse for a quart of vodka or a cloak.
The sand-drifts and the reeds were already drying up in the steppes, and the cattle, lowing, ran into the fields in the day-time. The boars migrated into the distant reed-beds and to the hills beyond the Terek. Mosquitoes and gnats swarmed in thick clouds over the low lands and villages. The snow-peaks were hidden in grey mist. The air was rarefied and smoky.
Turning to his comrades he managed to make out which pair of legs belonged to whom, when it suddenly seemed to him that he heard something splash on the other side of the Terek. He turned again towards the horizon beyond the hills, where day was breaking under the upturned crescent, glanced at the outline of the opposite bank, at the Terek, and at the now distinctly visible driftwood upon it.
In part the law becomes a dead letter, in part it is evaded by skill and fraud, in part it is obeyed to give rise to worse evils. This happened, for instance, in the Terek district of the Caucasus where, on the demand of a medical committee, priests were prohibited from marrying persons among whose relatives or ancestry any cases of leprosy had occurred.
Next, in order , are the Godwits, which follow the mild seasons from one country to another; among them are the English red godwit; and the Australian terek snipe. In the next case the visitor should examine the varieties of Snipes and Sand-pipers it contains. These birds hunt their food in gravel and amid stones in most localities.
Since the capture of Shamyl and the pacification of the Caucasus, this Cossack population of the Kuban and the Terek, extending in an unbroken line from the Sea of Azof to the Caspian, have been able to turn their attention to peaceful pursuits, and now raise large quantities of wheat for exportation; but they still retain their martial bearing, and some of them regret the good old times when a brush with the Circassians was an ordinary occurrence and the work of tilling the soil was often diversified with a more exciting kind of occupation.
After having wandered about for a considerable time he came upon a ditch down which was flowing cold sandy water from the Terek, and, not to go astray any longer, he decided to follow it. He went on without knowing where the ditch would lead him. Suddenly the reeds behind him crackled.
It is one of the chain of similar Cossack settlements which, called "the line" of the Caucasus, stretches from the mouth of the Kuban to that of the Terek; and as the invaders penetrate further and further into the mountains, they carry this system of Cossack colonies and fort defenses with them, so that the chain forged to bind within its thousand links the liberties of all the tribes is gradually drawn tighter and tighter.
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