Lydia Davis - Almost No Memory

They make thirty-six versts to Kobia, pass by Kazbek, the highest part of the Caucasus, make twenty-eight versts in the rocky valley of Dagran, then leave the mountain and advance to the fortress of Vladi Caveass. They cross the little Cabarda entirely depopulated by the plague. On the road he sees the dead bodies of Cossacks and fragments of their lances strewn about.

Here in Mozdok, they are in quarantine.

Mozdok to Taman: Fevers

The ground has recently been overflowed by the Terek, his tent is not waterproof and the country is famous for fevers. He lies several days on the earth with a violent fever, surrounded by basins to catch the rain, which does not stop him from being drenched by it.

A change of situation and a thorough tanning of bark make him well again, but he is detained at Georgievsk by the illness of his fellow traveler.

They will go along the Cuban to Taman, the site of the Greek colony Phanagoria, and so over the Cimmerian Bosphorus to Kerch, the ancient Panticapaeum.

Taman: In the European Manner

At Stauropol he has a third fever that reduces him so low he cannot stand without fainting away. His optic nerves become so relaxed as to make him blind; with his right eye he can scarcely distinguish at night the flame of a candle. As he regains strength, his vision returns.

He recovers from the fever by using James’s Powder in very large doses, but remains some time very deaf, subject to alarming palpitations of the heart, and so weak that he cannot stand long.

At Taman, they are detained some time by their interpreter falling ill. They are determined to wait there for his recovery, but he grows weaker rather than stronger, being housed in a damp lodging. Fellow traveler Poinsett suffers so severely from a bilious fever and becomes so weak they are very apprehensive for him, but then all rapidly regain strength, due to some light frost, to living in the European manner, and to the great attention of General Fanshaw, the Governor of the Crimea, who is an Englishman.

Back to Moscow: A Scotch Physician

They stop off in Kiev, the third city in Russia. Here the language is more Polish than Russian.

He loses another servant. The man is lethargic, refuses to exercise, secretly throws away his medicine, grows worse, is brought along lying on a bed in a kibitka toward the house of an English merchant, halfway there gets out, with the help of another servant gets in again, falls into a lethargic sleep, and on their arrival at the inn in Moscow is found dead.

Thus, of four servants who left this city with them, only one has returned, a stout Negro of Poinsett’s, who has borne the climate better than any of them.

Of his wardrobe, all he has left now is one coat and a pair of pantaloons.

He hopes to sail directly from Petersburg to Harwich. In the meantime, here in Moscow, he has put himself under the direction of a Scotch physician, Dr. Keir, who prescribes absolute repose for the next four months and has ordered a course of bark and vitriolic acid, beef, mutton, and claret.

Improved Health: A Gentlemanlike Slimness

His health has improved quickly, he has lost every bad symptom: his dropsical legs have reduced to a gentlemanlike slimness, a fair round belly swelled and as hard as a board has shrunk to its former insignificance, and he is no longer annoyed by palpitations of the heart and pulsations of the head.

Within the past three days he has recovered his voice, which he had lost for two months. He is leading the life of a monk.

Poinsett leaves soon. Then he will set about writing a journal of the tour, though the mode of traveling during the first part of the journey, and the scarcity of chairs and tables, as well as the illness of the second part, have been very unfavorable to journalizing. In addition, the few notes he had taken were rendered illegible by crossing a torrent.

The End of the Tour: Shipwreck

He goes to Petersburg and finds his friends Colonel and Mrs. Pollen. Together they will go to Liebau in the Dutchy of Courland and try to sail to England by way of Sweden. He is suffering from the shock his constitution received in the south of Russia. He has frequent attacks of fever and ague and is nursed by the Colonel and his wife.

After three weeks in Liebau they engage a passage to Carlscrona on the ship Agatha, embarking on April 2. They sail, the weather is fine, the ice lies close about a mile from shore, they get through it at the rate of two miles an hour and are in clear water by 3 p.m. All that day and the next they have light breezes from the southeast. On the fourth, at about 2 p.m., they sight the Island of Oeland at a distance of eight or nine miles. It is blowing very hard: in an hour they get close in and see the ice about a mile from the shore.

Colonel Pollen wonders if they can anchor under Oeland, and another passenger, an English seaman by the name of Mr. Smith, thinks not, as the ice would drift off and cut the cables. The captain says he will stand on to the southward till eight o’clock, then return to the island, but at eight and at twelve he will not go back: now it blows a gale of wind from the westward with a very heavy sea. The vessel makes much water and the pumps are choked with ballast. The crew will bail very little; the water gains fast.

On the fifth they run the whole day before the wind. At noon on the sixth, Colonel Pollen wonders if the vessel can keep the sea. The English seaman says that unless the sailors make more efforts to bail she can’t live long, since they already have three feet of water in the hold and it is gaining on them. The best way to save themselves is to steer for some port in Prussia. The Colonel agrees and tells the captain. The captain agrees and recommends Liebau, but the Colonel objects on account of the English seaman and a certain Mr. Renny, who have both escaped from Russia without passports. The captain agrees to go to Memel, but says he has never been there in his life: if the English seaman will take the ship in, he will give it over into his charge when they come to the bar. The seaman agrees because he knows the harbor perfectly well.

At two o’clock in the morning on the seventh they sight land to the southward about fifteen miles from Memel. They are close in to a lee shore because of the captain’s ignorance and carelessness in running so far in the dark. They haul the ship to by the wind on the larboard tack, and at four o’clock get sight of Memel, which the captain takes for Liebau until he is told otherwise, when he is very surprised. Colonel Pollen and the other gentlemen come on deck and tell the captain to give the charge to the English seaman, which he does.

At six they come to the bar, the tide running very high, with two men at the helm. The passengers are pressing around the helm in a way that is dangerous to themselves and prevents the helmsmen from seeing ahead very well, so the English seaman asks them to go below. But now, unfortunately, the captain sees the sea breaking over the bar and becomes so frightened that he runs immediately to the helm and with the help of his people puts it hard-a-port. Though the English seaman strives against this, in ten minutes they are on the Southlands.

The third time the ship strikes, she grounds and fills with water. They are about a mile and a half from shore.

There is a small roundhouse on deck and Mrs. Pollen, Mrs. Barnes, her three children, two gentlemen, a man and a maidservant get into this to save themselves from the sea. Colonel Pollen and the English seaman begin to clear the boats out; the sailors will not help. They get the small one out and three sailors get into it with the captain. Lord Royston, who is in a very weak state of health, tries to follow them but the English seaman prevents him, telling him it is not safe. When the captain hears this, he gets out. When the boat leaves the ship’s side it turns over and the three men drown.