CHAPTER V 



JOURNEYING TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 



I like this place, 



And willingly could waste my time in it. 



As You Like If. 



Disguised like Muscovites in shapeless gear. 



Love's Labour s Lost. 



Kenneth was very loth to leave the fleshpots of Tiflis 

 for an expedition into the wilderness. It was, he said, 

 a regrettable feature of modern life, this always want- 

 ing to be somewhere else. Just as though we had 

 journeyed all those miles to stew in Tiflis with the 

 thermometer standing at 85° indoors. He even worked 

 in that peculiarly irritating proverb about rolling 

 stones. Such a silly saying, I always think, for if the 

 perambulating pebble didn't gather moss it would 

 pick up experience, I suppose. 



It was all very well for Kenneth. Cherchez la femme ! 

 He was bent on enduring the tropical heat in order 

 that he might be near a Georgian lady of his admira- 

 tion, who did not seem to mind the torrid climate in 

 the least. She had, my cousin said, a mouth which he 

 could only describe as " Boca provocativa." I don't 

 speak Spanish, so haven't an idea what it means, but 

 it is evidently something hard to get. We were not 



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