170 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



I should have so hked to discover whether or no 

 the wives rehshed being so many, and whether their 

 affections managed to hang- on when they saw the 

 object of them dispensing his own so generously. 

 What a woeful state of things ! It would soon cure me. 

 Because it would make me think. And when love 

 stops to think it abates — it looks beyond, and asks 

 what it means. 



I wanted to see the system of centuries in operation. 

 If it is all in Nature's scheme it must be perfect. And 

 yet — Nature has undoubtedly worked out with her 

 marvellous wisdom that mankind to flourish must not 

 breed promiscuously — many husbands or many wives 

 being degeneracy. 



It would have interested me to find out if the wives 

 regarded their lord and master as the great creation 

 he evidently thought himself — if they were deceived 

 with him. Perpetual prompting wears away a wife. 

 And, of course, it is never the man himself a woman 

 falls in love with, but that which she believes him 

 to be. It's a great mercy for the average man that all 

 women are such highly imaginative beings. 



I noticed what a diversity of ears all the men had, 

 and how careful they were to cover them with their 

 papaks instead of pressing them outwards, as so many 

 of our busbied soldiers do. 



Cecily always says that, just as Frank Richardson 

 is a crank on whiskers, so am I on ears. There's 

 such a lot of character in ears, and the varieties to 

 be seen in Daghestan would have charmed the mind 

 of a Lombroso. As a rule ears run in families, and 



