204 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



and their Orthodox bondmen brethren is everywhere 

 most noticeable, and the transformation effected by 

 emancipation from the galHng yoke of the tentacled 

 Church of the Holy Russian Empire is incalculable. 

 It means, in a word, freedom. And that is the greatest 

 possession in all the world. 



" Look here, upon this picture and on this." 



Contrast the Orthodox moujik village, with its filth- 

 laden street of broken-windowed dwellings, where the 

 grain, if there is any, is threshed by Stone Age methods 

 and winnowed by the wind, with the prosperous 

 sectarian colony, tree-embowered, where every home- 

 stead is equipped with necessaries, well kept and 

 burnished. 



" She is good, like a Molokani wife," is an expression 

 often heard in the Caucasus, and after a sojourn in a 

 Molokani household we understood its meaning. 



But they doubted us — the good people, in spite of 

 their hospitality and generous ways. They couldn't help 

 doubting us. How came it that we spoke Russian 

 so well ? Might we not be secret agents of a Govern- 

 ment bent on extracting one more tribute of Csesar's 

 many ? Or, perchance, pohtical propagandists, or 

 even some new type of missionary ? 



After a supper, served in a spotless room, like an inn 

 in Holland, of eggs scrambled, Molokani-fashion, with 

 milk, and well-baked white bread, our hostess diffi- 

 dently introduced the Starshina, or headman of the 

 settlement, who wore a tin disc on his chest which 

 betokened his authority. 



This worthy was a grey-muzzled curmudgeon, far 



