Although it was the middle of October, the vegetation was still quite fresh. Rich green swards covering the steep slopes of the mountains, afforded abundant pasture for the scattered flocks of goats. Their keepers, dressed in sheep-skins, and, instead of crooks, carrying long guns slung at their backs, and two or three powder and ball cases at their girdles, gave a half martial, half pastoral complexion to the landscape. Gigantic eagles flew majestically from rock to rock, like the sole sovereigns of those solitary places. Here we had really before us what we had dreamed of in the Caspian steppes, when, with eyes scorched by the hot sand, and with no amusement but the sight of our camels and the sound of their cries, or the encounter of some Kalmuck kibitkas, we tried to beguile the discomforts of our situation by peopling the desert with a thousand fascinating images.
Before we reached the gorge in which Kislovodsk is concealed, we fell in with a second party of Circassians; but fortified by the safety with which we had pursued our journey so far, and by our stay in Piatigorsk, I indulged without apprehension in the pleasure of admiring them. There were eight or ten of them reposing under a projecting rock, and a very picturesque group they formed. Their horses, saddled and bridled, were feeding at a little distance from their masters, who had not disencumbered themselves of their weapons. Some had their heads entirely enveloped in bashliks, a sort of hood made of camels' hair, which is worn only in travelling; others wore the national fur cap; their garments, of a graceful and commodious form, glittered with broad silver lace; they all had bourkas, a kind of mantle, indispensable to the Circassian as his weapons. When our carriage approached them, some of them sat up and looked at us with an air of scornful indifference, but showed no disposition to molest us.
Our first business on reaching Kislovodsk was to visit the source of the acid waters, to which the place owes its celebrity. It does not break out like most others from the side of a mountain, or from a cleft in a rock, but at the bottom of a valley. Nature, who usually conceals her treasures in the most inaccessible spots, has made an exception in its favour. A square basin has been constructed for it, and there it seems continually boiling up, though it has no heat. It resembles Seltzer-water in its sparkling and its slightly acid taste.
Kislovodsk consists of about fifteen houses, or rather little Asiatic palaces, adorned with long open galleries, terraces, gardens, and vestibules filled with flowers. All the frequenters of Piatigorsk finish the watering season at Kislovodsk. Behind this aristocratic abode extends a narrow gorge, bounded on all sides by vertical mountain crags that seem to cut it off from the whole world. It would require several days to explore all the charming scenes in the neighbourhood. Among its natural curiosities is a celebrated cascade hidden in the very heart of the valley. The way to it leads for an hour along the bed its waters have hollowed for themselves through a thick limestone stratum, over a winding path that narrows continually up to the foot of the fall. At that spot you are imprisoned between cliffs so steep that no goat could find footing on them, and you have before you a dazzling sheet of water descending by terraces from a height of more than sixty feet, breaking into snowy foam where it meets with obstacles on its way, and disappearing for a moment under fragments of rocks, beyond which it re-appears as a limpid stream, flowing over a bed of moss and pebbles.
The position of Kislovodsk exposes it much more that Piatigorsk to the assaults of the mountaineers, and one never feels quite safe there, notwithstanding the Cossack detachment that guards the heights. A Circassian aoul, perched like an eyrie on the highest crest of the adjacent mountains, is a dangerous neighbour for the water drinkers. Its inhabitants, though nominally subdued, forego no opportunity of wreaking their hatred on the Russians.
After our return to the doctor's roof, we went to see the German colony of Karas at the foot of the Bechtau. Its thriving condition does honour both to the colonists and to the government whose protection they have sought. At first it was composed only of Scotchmen, and was founded by one Peterson, a zealous sectarian, whose chief object was the conversion of the Circassians. But his preaching was wholly ineffectual, and by degrees the laborious Germans took the place of the Scotch missionaries. The original intention of the establishments is now scarcely remembered: the colonists are simply agriculturists, and think only of enriching themselves at the cost of the strangers who come to drink the mineral waters.