330 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



and we hurried to patronize him. When we got there 

 we found a Swiss who had once been a waiter in a 

 Soho restaurant ! He told us that, though not quite 

 Enghsh, he hoped we would find him English enough, 

 and set about proving it by serving us with underdone 

 beef-steak and Guinness's stout, 



England is not represented in the Consular body, 

 the office having been done away with in 1881, " be- 

 cause the objects for which it was founded were 

 not accomplished." Delightfully vague, and means, 

 I suppose, that nobody turned up for a Consul to 

 minister to. 



You are waiting to hear whether I advise you to 

 " do " the Frosty Caucasus in your autumn holiday. 

 It's a glorious country — I don't think there's another 

 quite like it anywhere. 



Some author-philosopher has said that the only dis- 

 comforts a nomad in the Caucasus has to face these 

 days are food and fleas. I call that a very idealistic 

 way of looking at it. It is in its wildest corners an 

 exceedingly tough country, grimly uncomfortable, 

 cruelly rough-and-tumble. I agree with the philosopher 

 that there is now " practically no danger in travelling 

 in any part," but I think he ought to have underlined 

 the " practically." 



Discretion is the better part of valour in all parts of 

 the world, and particularly so in Caucasian wilds. 

 Oddly enough, nobody is a better judge of his man 

 than the savage mountain-born one, the type who has 

 never seen beyond his ice-wall to lose his judgment. If 

 you look the sort of person likely to protect yourself. 



