300 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



very wonderful in " Michael Michaelovitch." He is a 

 handsomer trophy as he roams his woods, with the 

 undergrowth for a background, than ever he looks 

 set up on any wall. 



I don't think I've told you how Ali Ghirik stalked 

 oUen, and it is worth hearing. His methods were his 

 own, for he was no imitator, an inventor always. 

 When we questioned him, since we knew he had 

 never tracked deer before, he said that his system 

 came to him by intuition, from his inner con- 

 sciousness. 



He did not uphold the generally-accepted idea that 

 a hunter's head should be the highest part of him, 

 and always crawled along diligently keeping nose and 

 toes to the ground, making a very observable hummock 

 of himself, like the rounded back of a hippo in a river. 

 High above the oscillating ferns Ali protruded, and 

 when we begged that he would at least cover up the 

 flintlock he had borrowed, as we covered up our weapons, 

 he grew most annoyed, and didn't believe us a scrap 

 when we assured him that the glint of a rifle barrel 

 shows for miles. He also harboured the extraordinary 

 idea, which we heard more than once in Karbarda, 

 that the ollen of the district is bereft of hearing in the 

 left ear ! The creatures are all born deaf ! How these 

 strange notions originate Heaven only knows. 



When we laughed and scoffed at the absurdity, the 

 old man said, with an offended ring in his voice, that 

 we were very foolish, and it was not for us to say 

 whether or no the deer of a country which was not 

 ours could hear or not. Surely we had observed that 



