TRIP TO VLADIKAVKAZ AND KARBARDA 213 



load of overturned offal, picking in sated indolence at 

 the fearsome skins and bones with the bored exclusive 

 air of aliens in a land they had come to be a part of. 

 We drove quite close to the impassive birds, whose 

 only means of defence — a very powerful one — is their 

 skunk-like odour. One veteran rose from within a 

 couple of yards of us and sailed away majestically. 

 You would almost take him for a gannet on the wing, 

 save for the black bar across the pinions. 



The scenery was not scenery here, just a land burnt 

 up by a brazen sun. The dust enveloped us in clouds, 

 swirling in spiral columns to the tops of the iron 

 telegraph posts, epoch-marking posts. England made 

 them, not Germany. 



It requires, they say, a good constitution to travel 

 in Spain. It needs a frame of steel to post in the Cau- 

 casus. A very little of it reduces one to a condition 

 of advanced " pins and needles," and one's sight, from 

 dizziness, plays the strongest pranks. Two yamschiks 

 seemed to drive us, two rounded backs curved with the 

 bounds of this astonishing carriage, a troop of galloping 

 steeds slashed the dust in turmoil right and left. 



You get a great deal for your money under the 

 regime of Russia sometimes. This indescribable 

 journey cost very little in actual cash. There is an 

 official charge for each verst endured, eight kopecks 

 I think it was, equal to about twopence of our money, 

 and the tarantass or telega is thrown in. The driver 

 expected something like twenty kopecks a stage. The 

 distances between these varied. For instance, Mtsket, 

 our first stop, is about twenty versts out of Tiliis, and 



