SECOND TOUR IN THE GREAT CAUCASUS. 301 



satellites erected a hut of twigs over our camping- 

 place, leaving the view over the plain free, and made 

 it so comfortable that it would not have been possible 

 to have rested more agreeably. Then the meal was 

 rapidly prepared, which we consumed in a recumbent 

 position. After that the princes and their attendants 

 reclined in front of us. and began a national drinking- 

 bout with a kind of mulled wine of generous Kakhetian 

 growth. In the course of this each of the princes 

 drank my own and my brother's health with some 

 doubtless very flattering words, expecting that there- 

 upon we should also empty our horns. The princes 

 spoke Georgian only, an interpreter translated for us 

 into Russian what they said. No one of those present 

 understood our German answers, a circumstance of 

 which my frolicsome brother Otto took a somewhat 

 dangerous advantage by delivering the replies, which 

 I left to him, in extremely polite fashion indeed as 

 regards voice, tone, and gesture, but with a verbal 

 parody of the whole scene, which assuredly would 

 have been cut short by dagger-stabs, if his words had 

 been understood, and if we had not taken pains to 

 give a good colour to them by grave and respectful 

 countenances. 



When, on the following morning, we had happily 

 slept off our little debauch in the refreshing mountain- 

 air, without any unpleasant after-effects, we inspected 

 the lode, which was certainly a rich one, but not yet 

 opened up, and owing to the troublesome access to 

 it offered insuperable obstacles to profitable working. 



