Vassili Verestchagin: Painter-soldier-traveller, Volume 1R. Bentley & son, 1887 |
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Common terms and phrases
amban animals arrived arshin asked bazaar bear bearers bird Bokhara Buddhist Cashmere Central Asia Changsed Chinese colour coolies Cossacks Darjeeling district divana DJONGRI dress Duchobortzis eyes father feet fell fire forest foxes ghans give hair hand head Himalayas HINDOO holy honour horses houses hunting huntsman husband Imam inhabitants Jaksun journey Kashgars killed king Kirghiz kuknar lama Leapers live Lodi look marten ment Molokanes monastery mosques mother mountains natives Nepaul night Nogais NURSE ANNA once opium passed peasant Pemiontsi prayers rice river road roe-deer roubles round Russian Russian Turkestan Sarts Shiites Shusha side Sikkim singing skin snow soon starosta Tartars Tashkend Tassiding Tchinas temple tent told Tomlong town trap travellers tree Turkestan turn Urdshar Usbeks Vassia VASSILI Verestchagin versts village walls whole wolves woman women young
Popular passages
Page 89 - Behold the fowls of the air ; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Page 173 - Wonderful groves and avenues, the work of years, are sometimes completely destroyed or going rapidly to decay. As you approach the town, it is hard to believe that it is empty : you cannot help hoping to meet some human being, if it be only a robber. But not a soul is to be seen anywhere. The houses are for the most part uninjured, and also the paintings on the walls and on the wooden lattice-work of the windows. Potsherds and fragments of articles of every conceivable kind were lying all about...
Page 173 - Dunghans and Kalmucks side by side with the miniature slippers of Chinese women. I put a pair of extraordinarily small slippers in my pocket as a memento. But above all, skulls are to be seen lying about everywhere. The town is like a vast tomb, and the whole impression it produces is terrible. I wandered about for a whole day in B.'s company, and then for several...
Page 174 - ... and tedious siege, made their way into the fortress. Then began a merciless butchery, in which no one was spared. Skulls and bones lie literally in heaps against the walls here and all around the fortress ; at many points — eg by several of the gates — the skulls were piled up to a great height. In the fields round the town, too, lie skulls ; as far as the eye can reach, skulls and skulls and again skulls. The wolves and the jackals have already done their work ; the ravens are still engaged...
Page 174 - ... empty. The gate of the fortress, which the besiegers had blown in, is still tolerably strong. Near the gate is to be seen the entrance into the subterranean gallery by which the besiegers, after a long and tedious siege, made their way into the fortress. Then began a merciless butchery, in which no one was spared. Skulls and bones lie literally in heaps against the walls here and all around the fortress ; at many points — eg by several of the gates — the skulls were piled up to a great height.
Page 192 - One day I went out to make a sketch of the sunset. I prepared my palette, but the sight was so beautiful I waited, delayed the work in order to examine better the sight. Several thousand feet below me all was wrapt in a pure blue shadow ; the summits of the peaks were resplendent in purple flames. I waited, and waited, and would not begin my sketch.
Page 175 - For three whole weeks I lived with one Cossack and one Tartar in a wretched cabin outside the walls of the fortress, and every day from morning till evening I roamed about, looking at everything, drawing and painting.