TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 117 



from below it is a beautiful thing, seen from above 

 more enchanting still, seen from within, with its quaint 

 little narrow streets, picturesquely primitive, overhung 

 with balconies, it bids you stay for ever. We should 

 call the place a hill-station in India. Little chalets, 

 for the most part two-storied, nestle amid a world of 

 green, each pigeon-house abode higher than its neigh- 

 bour. 



Signakh is fortified, though the once extensive 

 fortifications have a somewhat Earl's Courtian air about 

 them now. The need for them is at an end. But in 

 Schamyl's day — the little place is at the very gate of 

 Daghestan — it was a strongly-held Russian post, 

 whither the country folk of the valleys below were 

 accustomed to retreat when a raid was imminent. 



We were entertained at her summer residence by a 

 countrywoman of our own, to whom we had letters of 

 introduction, a lady who was busily solving for herself 

 the benefits or disadvantages — these things depend on 

 the personal point of view — of international marriages, 

 her husband being a Russian holding a Civil appoint- 

 ment. She was as lonely and cut off from her own people 

 as though she lived in Kamchatka, and reminded me 

 of a tiny chip of wood cast up by a mighty river on the 

 banks of a sleepy backwater where the weeds grow a- 

 tangle, and the tall swaying bulrushes hide the light 

 of day. As the little timber fragment lies high and dry, 

 never more to float over swirling rapids, doomed to rot 

 in the sun until the dust is caught up and scattered by 

 the winds, so are some of us thrown by Fate on somno- 

 lent hills or forgotten estuaries, and there, unless a 



