THE KILLING OF THE GREY BEAR 165 



gaunt mountain villages set in the Daghestan wilder- 

 ness. Perhaps it is because every inch of land has its 

 chronicle, the sacred chronicle of the war-makers who 

 have gone before. 



The women, unveiled and unashamed, did all the 

 work. Was it not enough, demanded the offended 

 Ali, when we remonstrated, that the men carry arms ? 

 As though there was any particular hardship in that. 

 The poor feminines had to shoulder weights which 

 really did count. 



One poor toiler bumped about for hours on a baulk, 

 or sleigh, of timber studded with flint teeth, towed by 

 a bullock over the roughest of ground upon which corn 

 ears were strewn in a circle. Round and round they 

 trailed, she trying to keep her place on the oscillating 

 perch in her desire to add her weight to the threshing 

 scheme, and the animal going like a clock which needs 

 winding. 



Among the fierce dogs of the place, great brutes with 

 deep chests and square, purposeful jaws, a little grey 

 bear cub fought for his place in the world. It was 

 quaintly pathetic to see the back-handed cuffs and 

 protesting snaps with which the ursine atom demanded 

 equal rights in the sharing up of the fearsome offal 

 which lay in smelling heaps in the highways and 

 byways of the houses. Nobody seemed to care for the 

 small creature ; indeed, to all intents and purposes, it 

 was free to return to the wild an it listed, but it had 

 eaten of the bread of dependence and drunken of the 

 wine of ease. A land of plenty held it as securely as a 

 den in the Zoo. Next winter the cub would provide 



