From Georgief we set out for Piatigorsk, the chief watering place of the Caucasus, and travelled for three hours over a dreary plain, with nothing for the eye to rest on but here and there a long conical mound, that scarcely broke the dull monotony of the landscape; and even these were scarcely visible through the foggy atmosphere. We felt, therefore, a depression of spirits we had never known in our previous journeyings, and it was still more increased by the thought that we might fall in with those Circassians whose very name strikes terror into the Russians.
The two Cossacks whom the commandant of Georgief had given us for escort, were not the sort of men to assuage our fears, for they seemed themselves very much possessed with a sense of the dangers we were incurring. Their visages grew very serious indeed when we had left the plain behind us, and the road began to skirt along a deep valley, with the waters of the Pod Kouma brawling at the bottom. They were constantly peering in every direction, as if they expected every moment to fall into an ambuscade. Presently they stopped, and called our dragoman to show him a spot on which their eyes seemed riveted. One of them began to talk with great volubility, and from his expressive gestures it was evident he was relating some tragic event of which that spot had been witness. And so, indeed, it was. Anthony informed us that on the very spot where we stood, a young Polish lady had been assailed the year before by several mountaineers, who lay in wait for her in the bed of the torrent. She was on her way to the waters of Kislovodsk, accompanied by an escort and two or three servants. Her followers were massacred or dispersed, her carriage was rifled, and she herself was carried off and never heard of again, notwithstanding the most active exertions to ascertain her fate. One of the Cossacks, who had escaped by miracle from the balls of the Circassians, galloped off to Georgief, and returned within a few hours to the scene of the catastrophe, accompanied by a detachment of cavalry. They found the carriage broken to pieces, and plundered of all its contents; and the ground was strewed with bodies horribly mutilated and stripped of their arms, but neither the body of the young lady nor that of her waiting-maid was among them. It is to be presumed that the Circassians carried them off to their aoul, as the richest spoils of their bloody expedition.
The story of this recent tragedy, related on the very spot where it had occurred, made no slight impression upon us; my dismay, therefore, may be imagined, when a sudden clearing up of the fog enabled us to distinguish at a distance of a hundred yards from the road, what seemed but too palpable a realisation of my fearful fancies. There was no room for doubt. The men before us were those terrible Circassians I had trembled at the thought of meeting. The scream that escaped me, when I caught sight of them, was fortunately heard by one of our Cossacks, who immediately relieved my mind by the assurance that these were men of a friendly tribe. Nevertheless, in spite of my conviction that we had no hostilities to apprehend, it was not without some secret uneasiness I saw them defile past us. The troop was a small one, five or six at most, yet they looked dangerous enough. I shall never forget the glances they cast on our Cossacks as they rode by, though it was only in looks they manifested the hatred that rankled in their hearts against every thing belonging to Russia. They were all fully armed. Their pistols and their damasked poniards glittered from beneath their black bourkas. I confess I was best pleased with their appearance when they were just vanishing from sight on the top of a hill, where their martial figures were relieved against the sky. Seen through the mist, they set me thinking of Ossian's heroes.
We continued to wind our way slowly up a steep and narrow track, and for half an hour we did not see a cabin or a living creature except some vultures of the largest kind, flying silently above our heads. At last we reached the culminating point of the road, whence we could look down on the valley, Piatigorsk, the villas scattered over the heights, and all the details of a delightful landscape, that seemed as if it had dropped by chance amongst the stern and majestic scenes of the Caucasian Alps. From thence we had a gentle descent of about a verst to the outskirts of Piatigorsk.