268 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



I shot my ollen when out with Keebeet, the chief 

 forester, game-warden, what you will, a Russian 

 worthy, one of those wonderful people who under- 

 stand how to get others to do the work and yet make 

 it seem to himself and all about him that he is the most 

 diligent and busy person alive. From a shallow 

 backwater he threw pebbles into the great River 

 Doing, and in the widening ripples saw a maelstrom 

 of his making. 



Keebeet was vindictive, too — and I hate vindic- 

 tiveness, especially in a sportsman. We all feel a 

 desire to give blow for blow, anger for anger, hurt for 

 hurt, but the man who stays his hand when he has 

 the power to bring it down has nobility in his soul. 

 Keebeet was a failure in all save — Keebeet ! Surely 

 the gayest, quaintest, most insouciant name in all the 

 Muscovite category. 



Near a salt spring — the natives call these places 

 solontchaki — we crossed a marshy bit of ground, a bush 

 Piccadilly evidently, for a criss-cross of tracks wound 

 this way and that, and everywhere the spoor of wolves 

 and bears intersected the passage of grub-hunting 

 ducks. These salt licks are a great attraction to all 

 wild creatures, to creatures of the world, also, for often 

 in remote corners we came on primitive camping 

 parties, taking " a course of the waters." Caucasians 

 tell you that the medicinal properties of their springs 

 have been known through all the ages. 



All around us the soggy earth was riddled with the 

 spear-point drillings of snipe, and — most interesting to 

 see — a migration of toads was in progress. From the 



