TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 87 



We passed through a desolate settlement of miser- 

 able clay hovels grouped close together, primitive 

 abodes enough, windowless, with roughly fashioned 

 door cavities blocked with stones. They were the 

 winter homes of Tatar herdsmen, summer wanderers 

 after the grass lands. The shepherd is rather a lazy 

 specimen, or he would build him a more pretentious 

 dwelling of the wood which here at least was all about 

 for the taking. 



Across the meeting of the waters of several streams 

 we rode up a deep glen, a wooded rift set in the groins 

 of an Atlas supporting the skies. We prepared a 

 belated meal from the luxuries in our saddle-bags, and 

 Ali Ghirik, though a professional Mussulman, did not 

 hesitate to eat with us. 



Up and up we climbed, passing beneath lofty trees 

 which seemed to take us to the heart of an English 

 forest, threading our way through the dense under- 

 growth with difficulty. A startled roe-deer, rare in 

 these parts, looked out at us from an embrasure of 

 shadowy green, ears cocked and all inquisitive eyes, 

 like Coleridge's " sly satyr peeping through the leaves." 



The dry bed of a stream led us through a luxuriant 

 fern belt where fronded forms tossed in the wind, 

 graceful tree-ferns and maiden-hairs of tremendous 

 size. Here a curious natural-history phenomenon 

 presented itself. A hare came rushing down the 

 narrow way to meet us, and, sighting us, became 

 so paralysed with fear that it could not move. 

 Ali Ghirik, who was leading, jumped from his horse 

 and, seizing a stone, was about to deal the little 



