COLLECTING ORTHOPTEEA IN THE CAUCASUS AND TEANSCAUCASUS. 15 



exclusively Tartar, my host being the only Christian landowner in the 

 district. The Tartars here are grave and dignified, and very pleasant 

 and courteous to speak to. Often on my rambles I would meet a party 

 of them mounted on their shaggy little ponies, their knees tucked up 

 in true oriental fashion ; and, recognising me as a guest of their 

 neighbour, thej- always exchanged the time of clay in a solemn but 

 pleasant manner. The little boys rival their elders in gravity, for 

 when driving through Khaldan, the village urchins playing by the 

 roadside, instead of screaming vulgarities or throwing stones, immedi- 

 ately stopped their games, stood at attention, most sedately placed their 

 hands over their hearts, and bowed like grave and reverend signors. I 

 was particularly struck by the friendly relations between Christian and 

 Moslem. On the Feast of Bairam, at the expiration of the long and 

 trying fast of Ramazan, which all Moslems keep most strictly, I 

 accompanied my host on a round of visits to Suleiman Bek, Ismail 

 Bek, and other Tartar landowners; we were received and entertained 

 in the most hospitable fashion, and regaled with tea, not coffee, 

 cigarettes, various sweetmeats, safiVon bread, pistacios, and a leg of 

 mutton. I was assured that at Easter these Musselman Beks repaid 

 the compliment by calling to congratulate Mr. Shelkovnikoff" upon his 

 Christian festival. And this was within a week or two of the war in 

 the Balkans, many days' journey towards the west ! The Tartars do 

 not as a rule attain a very high degree of culture; the older men speak 

 nothing but their native Aderbaidjan dialect, Avhich is, of course, 

 related to Ottoman Turkish, but far freer from Arabic, Italian, and 

 other foreign influence, but it struck me as being harder in pronuncia- 

 tion, and far less harmonious. Indeed, I believe the law of vowel 

 harmony, which is such a beautiful characteristic of the Ottoman 

 dialect, is Avanting or neglected in Aderbaidjan. The younger generation 

 usually know Russian, and some of them speak it quite well, but on 

 the whole they are thoroughly imbued with the reposeful conservatism 

 of the East and strangers to that divine discontent that makes for 

 progress. 



In this Asiatic milieu, it seemed strange to see, not agaves, 

 oleanders, palms nor cactus, but elms and oaks, and the few spinneys 

 in the irrigated district hardly differed in appearance from the small 

 woods of the English landscape, though fig-trees and pomegranates in 

 the hedges bore witness to the latitude. And here at Geok-Tapa, the 

 "Green Hill," a common-place name in this part of the world, cor- 

 responding to the Russian " Zelenui muis," near a classic locality in 

 Russian Zoology and Botany, I spent two happy weeks. Both climate 

 and company were all sunshine. My kind host being one of those 

 open-hearted, nature-loving, widely-read, broad-minded spirits, with 

 whom one is at once in perfect sympathy and all members of his 

 household vied with one another in trying to make their visitor from 

 England as happy and comfortable as possible. 



{To be concluded.) 



