374 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



for an hour or two after his arrival, much less to feed 

 him. There is always a post like a hat-stand before 

 the house of the great man, to which visitors fasten 

 their ponies, and there they are left to stand until 

 thoroughly cool. Our poor brutes could have foxmd 

 no great difficulty in arriving at this latter state 

 of body, for shortly after our arrival came a most 

 tremendous thunderstorm. The thunder seemed to 

 burst almost inside the konak, and then went echo- 

 ing and crashing through the narrow valleys as 

 though it would rend the very mountains. The 

 sluice-gates of heaven seemed open, and the rain 

 swept in through the chinks and crevices of our 

 miserable abode in spite of our utmost efforts to 

 keep it out. We could not, however, be sufficiently 

 thankful for the shelter we enjoyed, when we remem- 

 bered how nearly we had been destined to pass the 

 night in the woods, and how deplorable would have 

 been our condition had we done so. As it was, we 

 were only suffering from a heated atmosphere and 

 voracious appetites, being confined in a small room 

 with a blazing fire, and deprived of our dinner until 

 half an hour after midnight. One was almost tempted 

 to believe that Bolingbroke must have been a Circas- 

 sian traveller, and spoke feelingly when he said 



" Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand 

 By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ; 

 Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite 

 By bare imagination of a feast ? " 



