104 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



monkeys each. A tiger and our lion kept company, 

 and all sorts of incongruities consorted. 



A performance of sorts was imminent, and as we 

 were getting rather bored our Russian friend asked 

 a young Persian standing by the cage whether the 

 lion-show was worth seeing. 



" I am the lion-tamer ! " he replied frigidly. 



For the rest, every booth sold icons, or holy pictures, 

 horribly gaudy, inartistic oleographs of all the saints 

 in the calendar and a few over. These are essential 

 elements in the Orthodox Christianity of the Muscovite, 

 much as similar works of art are necessary adjuncts to 

 a properly furnished seaside lodging-house at home. 



We wandered back to our " hotel " through a maze 

 of lanes with an old-world picturesqueness of their own. 

 All Telav is a reminiscence. The days of its splendour 

 have passed, and but a wraith of them colours the 

 Bazaar, where each trade keeps itself to itself, and the 

 dealers lounge on divans smoking long pipes, half- 

 asleep and quite indifferent to business. Many of these 

 shopkeepers are Persians, and with Persians trading 

 is always treated as a hobby, not a work of necessity. 



In and out of tempting heaps of fruit careful house- 

 wives roamed, enveloped in loose print wrappers and 

 decorously veiled. Great reddish-gold melons lay in 

 pyramids, beside pumpkins big enough for Cinderella's 

 coach ; velvety grapes, plums, and vast stacks of 

 apples toppling to a fall. 



In the bakers' arcade things were very busy. A 

 Tatar — more butcher-hke than bakerly, for his belt 

 had two daggers attached, and across his back an old 



