Swords of the Steppes
Page 75
The battle between Stenka Razin's men and the Persian fleet probably took place before the capture of Astrakhan. It is given clearly enough by Petis de la Croix, in his annals of the seventeenth century—the trick played by Stenka Razin, the death of the ten thousand. The incidents of the story, of course, appear to take place within a few months, instead of two or three years, as was actually the case.
Some readers may be curious about the word "alkali" in Central Asia at this early date. I was curious when I found "al-kali grass" mentioned by a European voyager there, long before the desert regions of America were explored. On investigation "al-kali" proved to be correct, al-qali, "roasted"—pure Arabic. In the deserts of Central Asia soap was made out of the ashes of the burned alkali grass.
This story is probably the first narrative to be written in English about the exploits of Stenka Razin. By great good luck in gathering material it was possible to uncover this story. Down to almost the smallest details it is a narrative of things that happened and men that existed.
The songs of the Volga pirates, the Round-head colonel, Mark himself, the capture of Astrakhan and the battle of the Volga pirates and the Moslems in the inland sea—all these are reality. The "man who was called a Walloon" played his part on the stage of life nearly three hundred years ago, just as he is shown in the story. The fat Polish colonel did accuse Mark as to his cannon, as told in the story.
Stenka Razin's actions, his character, and his end are all drawn from life.
Mark is not his real name—he was known as a Captain Butler. And the character of Uncle Kosta, who tells the story, and the niece of the Round-head colonel are imaginary. Also, the actual date of the battle on the Caspian is uncertain—it may well have taken place before the events of the story.
As to Mark's real identity—his youth and reasons for coming to As-trakhan—I have had to improvise. But I had his letters written from Astrakhan, splendid stuff, and the journal of the adventurer Jean Struys to compare them with, and the book of the priest-wanderer, Father Avril (who passed through Astrakhan a few years later) for further corroboration. Also the legends told me by the Cossacks as to Stenka Razin, and, to check these, the Moslem annals translated by Petis de la Croix some two hundred years ago.
So, from different men, in different languages and from various ages of the past, come these details of what happened on the inland sea in the year 1670.
As I said before, this story has been uncovered from the past, rather than made up. And I have tried to tell it as Uncle Kosta would actually have told it. Hence the brief prelude.
December 8, 1926: "The Wolf Master"
The koshevoi of the wolves is an old Cossack legend and is undoubtedly based on some actual happening. Just what it was no one knows. The Cossacks, by the way, used to call the wolves "gray friends" and the picture of St. Ulass and the wolf may still be seen in their churches.
As for the False Dmitri—he is one of the weirdest figures of history. His character is summed up very well by one historian, Ustrialof, in these words: "Since he was the head of many tsardoms that had submitted to the Russian scepter, not being satisfied with the title of tsar he took the name of emperor . . . but while he understood the necessities of the empire, he did not understand his own situation. He aroused against himself universal hatred, and the annals hint at unheard-of crimes and call him by the name of God-detested man."
An adventurer, who made himself a great emperor, aided by no more than his own wit; a man of unknown origin, who revealed real ability to rule when he had stolen the throne, and might have made the best of monarchs, except for one thing. Himself.
As to what befell him in the Terem that night, it is one of the secrets of medieval Russia. And about the most reliable account of the events of that night is the journal of Captain Margaret, French soldier of fortune.
The events are related in the story as Margaret and Bertrand told them— the mystery of the three missing horses, the beard on the dead man that did not look as if it had been shaved before then, the letter to the boyars and all the rest. Bamanof and Tevakel Khan and Ilbars Sultan were living men, and the raid of the Turkomans on the Golden Horde took place about this time—though the name of the Turkoman chieftain is not known to me.
As to the legend of the Earth Girdle—it bobs up in Europe, Persia and Arabia. In Europe, at least as late as 1630, it is the Cingulus Mundi, and in the tale of Abou Ishak it is the mountain Caf. I have in my library a map published by Petit de la Croix about i7i0 that shows a single mountain barrier stretching down mid-Asia and this barrier is named Caf.
Modern exploration has cleared up the geography of high Asia sufficiently to show that this "rampart" is in reality a system of many mountain ranges extending northeast from Afghanistan to Lake Baikal, rather than north and south.
But there are regions behind the Gobi still unexplored, and one chap, Thomas Atkinson, observed some curious ruins above Lake Zaizan Nor— the ruins that appear in the story as the city of the Golden Horde (which once ruled the country).
Atkinson saw a granite plateau standing out of a mountain range, and observed on nearer approach that the mass was in reality a number of isolated rock bulks that had the appearance of the ruined edifices of a vast city.
At least one ruin in this place was man-made—and during an earlier age—an enclosure nearly half a mile in length, surrounded by a wall of large stone blocks with smaller fitted between. Some portions were six feet high and seven thick. Where the wall was no more than two feet, Atkinson jumped his horse over it, and his two Cossacks followed him, but nothing could induce the native Kirghiz to enter the ruin. They rode around and waited for him on the other side.
They explained the ruins—which had the appearance of fortifications, towers, and pyramids—were the abode of "Shaitain" and it was not healthy to graze herds nearby after dusk.
The Kirghiz are descendants of the Golden Horde. There are many such basalt and limestone formations in the loess regions of Central Asia, and plenty of abandoned cities, the prey of encroaching sands, plague or invasion. And the ruins of nature are often similar to the ruins left by men.
About the Author
Harold Lamb (1892-1962) was born in Alpine nj, the son of Eliza Rollinson and Frederick Lamb, a renowned stain glass designer, painter, and writer. Lamb later described himself as having been born with damaged eyes, ears, and speech, adding that by adulthood these problems had mostly righted themselves. He was never very comfortable in crowds or cities and found school "a torment." He had two main refuges when growing up— his grandfather's library and the outdoors. Lamb loved tennis and played the game well into his later years.
Lamb attended Columbia, where he first dug into the histories of Eastern civilizations, ever after his lifelong fascination. He served briefly in World War I as an infantryman but saw no action. In 1917 he married Ruth Barbour, and by all accounts their marriage was a long and happy one. They had two children, Frederick and Cary. Arthur Sullivan Hoffman, the chief editor of Adventure magazine, recognized Lamb's storytelling skills and encouraged him to write about the subjects he most loved. For the next twenty years or so, historical fiction set in the remote East flowed from Lamb's pen, and he quickly became one of Adventure's most popular writers. Lamb did not stop with fiction, however, and soon began to draft biographies and screenplays. By the time the pulp magazine market dried up, Lamb was an established and recognized historian, and for the rest of his life he produced respected biographies and histories, earning numerous awards, including one from the Persian government for his two-volume history of the Crusades.
Lamb knew many languages: by his own account, French, Latin, ancient Persian, some Arabic, a smattering of Turkish, a bit of Manchu-Tar-tar, and medieval Ukrainian. He traveled throughout Asia, visiting most of the places he wrote about, and during World War II he was on covert assignment overseas for the U.S. government. He is remembered today both for his scholarly histories and for his swashbuckling tales of daring Cossacks
and Crusaders. "Life is good, after all," Lamb once wrote, "when a man can go where he wants to, and write about what he likes best."
Source Acknowledgments
These stories were originally published in Adventure magazine: "San-gar," August 20, 1922; "Mark of Astrakhan," November 20, 1925; "The Wolf Master," December 8, 1926; "The Moon of Shawwul," August 15, 1928; "The Outrider," September 15, 1929; "Koum," July 15, 1931; "Over the River," August 15, 1931; "The Post in the Steppe," January 15, 1932.
These stories were originally published in Collier’s magazine: "The Vampire of Khor," January 6, 1934; "The Devil's Song," April 10, 1937; "Singing Girl," June 24, 1939; "Cossack Wolf," February 28, 1942; "The Stone Woman," September 26, 1942; "City under the Sea," January 2, 1943; "The Two Swords of Genghis Khan," February 5, 1944.
"Red Hands" was originally published in The Big Magazine, March 1935.
"The Phantom Caravan" was originally published in Argosy, January 1944.
"Witch Woman" was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post, October 5, 1946.
"Wolf-Hounds of the Steppe" was originally published in Top Notch,
July 15, 1917.
University of Nebraska Press
Also of Interest in the series:
Wolf of the Steppes
The Complete Cossack Adventures, Volume One By Harold Lamb Edited by Howard Andrew Jones Introduction by S. M. Stirling
Wolf of the Steppes is the first of a four-volume set that collects, for the first time, the complete Cossack stories of Harold Lamb and presents them in order: every adventure of Khlit the Cossack and those of his friends, allies, and fellow Cossacks, many of which have never before appeared between book covers.
isbn 0-8032-8048-3; 978-0-8032-8048-9 (paper)
Warriors of the Steppes
The Complete Cossack Adventures, Volume Two By Harold Lamb Edited by Howard Andrew Jones Introduction by David Drake
This second volume collects all five tales of Khlit's greatest friend, the valorous Abdul Dost, and Dost's comrade, Sir Ralph Weyand. Contained herein are the three never-before-collected stories starring Khlit, including the short novel, The Curved Sword.
isbn: 0-8032-8049-1; 978-0-8032-8049-6 (paper)
Riders of the Steppes
The Complete Cossack Adventures, Volume Three
By Harold Lamb
Edited by Howard Andrew Jones
Introduction by E. E. Knight
The third volume introduces the Cossacks Ayub and Demid, who unite to safeguard the perilous Russian borders from marauding Turks, Tatars, and the machinations of Russian nobles in four tales and a novel crammed with intrigue and treachery, The Witch of Aleppo.
isbn: 0-8032-8050-5; 978-0-8032-8050-2 (paper)
Order online at www.nebraskapress.unl.edu or call 1-800-755-1105. Mention the code "bofox" to receive a 20% discount.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Wolf Master
Chapter III The Eagle's My Brother
Chapter V The Black Hour
Chapter IX Black Smoke Ahead
Chapter XII The Trail Beyond the River
Chapter XVI Tevakel Khan
The Outrider
The Cossack sprang up, his hand groping for his sw
Koum
Over the River
The Post in the Steppe
"Have you got them all—the prisoners?"
The Devil's Song
Mark of Astrakhan
girl."
Red Hands
Witch Woman
Sangar
The Vampire of Kohr
Singing Girl
The Moon of Shawwul
The Cossack bent his head and took her chin in his
Cossack Wolf
The Stone Woman
City Under the Sea
The Two Swords of Genghis Khan
The Phantom Caravan
Wolf-Hounds of the Steppe
Chapter VIII Face to Face
Appendix
About the Author
Source Acknowledgments