CHAPTER VII 



ARRIVAL AT THE HUNTING GROUNDS 



I p'rythee, shepherd, if that love or gold 

 Can in this distant place buy entertainment, 

 Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed. 



As You Like It. 



Strangers, and come here by chance. 



Love's Labour's Lost. 



The day we left Signakh to climb into Daghestan was, 

 or was not — we could not quite determine — Kenneth's 

 birthday. At home we should have been wishing him 

 " Many happy returns," but the Russian Calendar, 

 twelve days behind ours, said we were premature. 



It had rained hard all night, and the beautiful httle 

 place gleamed and glittered like a jewel in the dancing 

 sunlight. Across the Alanza an o'erarching rainbow 

 was reflected in the dull-toned plains rolling to the 

 horizon. Ali Ghirik called the glowing belt of prismatic 

 light " the Girdle of the Prophet " — such a poetical 

 synonym, I thought. 



The spirit of summer, golden-sandalled, trod the 

 gracious vine-clad slopes, woimd in and out the rain- 

 drenched sweet-smelling mulberry trees, and touched 

 with warm glory the snowy peaks which rose here and 

 there from the wall-like frontage of the main chain, 



119 



