148 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



I was to go out a-shooting with the tall, thin Musco- 

 vite, and Cecily with the podgy small one. It was all 

 very well for her, because she could make herself under- 

 stood, and my good-looking cavalier had to be dumb 

 with me. Perhaps as well — tur stalking. But then 

 there's the getting to the ibex ground, not to mention 

 the coming back. 



Our trusting belief, evolved from the traditional 

 schoolroom myth, that all Russians speak numerous 

 languages, and often English, fluently, was destined 

 to be smashed to atoms. A few much-travelled and 

 highly cultivated Russians are linguists, but the 

 average officer — bucolic, very — speaks nothing but his 

 own tongue, and takes care to learn no other. The 

 general idea in the Caucasus appears to be that that 

 cradle of languages has been rocked quite long enough, 

 and as they refuse to learn any of the tribal dialects the 

 conquerors are fast making Russian the lingua franca 

 of the whole country. The educated Georgian studies 

 Enghsh to a great extent, and this, I think, because a 

 knowledge of it gives him the key to the locked 

 treasure-house of our great poets, whose works must 

 otherwise remain, as the greatest of all poets hath it, 

 " shapes of local habitation and a name." 



My attendant, I could see, regarded Cecily's and my 

 sporting predilections with ill-concealed amusement. 

 I am so very used to that, and it has ceased to trouble 

 me. Time was ! 



I don't know why a woman should be considered on 

 sight to be unable to shoot as straight as a man, or stalk 

 so well, or play the game, or understand the ways of 



