234 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



agility of the " domestic chamois," we snatched but 

 httle sleep, and rose early in order to do some pros- 

 pecting around the village. 



The cold was intense. I know I am plagiarizing Dr. 

 Cook, but it can't be helped. The cold was intense. 

 The light rain of the night had frozen on the edge of 

 the verandah, and the road was as hard as iron. A 

 change indeed from the oven-like Tifiis. 



Crossing the foaming Terek we tried to walk through 

 a little village guarded by the efficacious dogs peculiar 

 to the Caucasus. They were wild and fierce enough 

 for anything, but Ali Ghirik, who never left us or 

 forsook us, said that it was appearance merely, and 

 the animals' looks bewrayed them. 



" I know they will not bite. I know they will not 

 bite," he kept repeating over and over. 



In this sorry scheme of things entire the Great 

 Solution of all things is only to be found through know- 

 ledge. The too trusting one was bitten rather badly 

 in the hand, and Cecily and I just saved ourselves by a 

 flank movement which flung us right into the pro- 

 tecting doorway of a little flat-roofed, one-roomed hut, 

 amid a group of interested Russians, father, mother, 

 babies, and the baboushka, and thus, willy-nilly, for the 

 first time we met the indispensable adjunct to the 

 properly-conducted Russian household of the lower 

 class. 



She, the baboushka, i.e. grandmother, is as necessary 

 as the samovar. Every family owns one, or did, for as 

 customs change, giving place to new, the baboushka 

 is not so fashionable as once on a time, but the dwellers 



