PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 169 



or vice-versa ; thus determining the fineness or coarse- 

 ness of the meal. On the wooden framing above the 

 hopper was pasted a written prayer in Arabic, from the 

 Koran, for luck. The old miller told us he could grind 

 about 36 poods of meal a day (a pood is ^ of a cwt). It 

 is a plea.sure to mention an instance of refined feeling on 

 the part of this old Tartar, for he was so grateful for the 

 20 kopeks I gave him, that when we came away he ran 

 on in front of us for some hundred yards in order to 

 place better stepping stones in the brook we had to cross, 

 and save us the chance of wet feet on a very cold day. 



In the city of Tiflis itself, the whole of the corn is 

 ground in stream mills, that is, mills worked by the rush 

 of the River Kura against flat floats on wheels of large 

 diameter. When these were invented I do not know ; 

 but they were first used in Rome by Belisarius during the 

 siege by the Goths, in the 6th century. 



But grinding by water power implies a certain degree 

 of civilised and settled life. If we go back for a moment 

 from this to the family life of the nomad Tartars in the 

 Steppe, we find ourselves at the beginning of things ; and 

 it was to me very interesting to trace from that beginning 

 the development of the bread-oven which fills so im- 

 portant, though humble, a place in our daily existence. 



The original oven, is a pit dug in the ground, and lined 

 with clav. I brought home a photograph, taken in the 

 wilderness, of some Tartar women making bread for baking 

 in one of these pits. An upper guard, standing out of the 

 ground, is made of wattle-work, the clay lining being 

 carried to the top. When the oven is hot, the cakes of 

 dough are wetted and stuck perpendicularly all over its 

 sides, and the top is covered with cloths until the bread 

 is baked. Now mark the evolution from this. If, in 

 moving f^om one pasturage to another halting ground, 

 the clay lining of the oven could be carried away in one 

 piece, it would save a good deal of labour in making the 



