CRASNOI LAIS. 



follow his peaceful example, but no beds and no 

 supper. At last we found the grand hotel, a gaunt 

 white house near the bazaar. With doubting 

 hearts (for the place looked deserted) we beat at 

 the little door, but got no response. After nearly 

 ten minutes spent in mutilating our knuckles and 

 damaging the door, a fellow in shirt and slippers 

 turned up, looking as astonished as his besotted 

 face would allow him to. The ' cazain ' (master) 

 was away, he said, and spite of his boasting anent 

 the capabilities of his house, we soon found there 

 was no food in it but black bread no servant but 

 himself. But he managed to find us a room in 

 fair repair, with a couple of the usual wooden bed- 

 steads in it, and this we took. To our horror we 

 found the stoves had not been lighted for a month, 

 and were out of order, so that the cold indoors was 

 greater than that without. Still it was too late to 

 seek a lodging elsewhere, so we had some of our 

 own stores cooked, a dram of Tumeruk vodka 

 from the cabak, a small charcoal stove put in the 

 middle of the room, and then rolling ourselves in 

 every fragment of clothing we could find, and 

 almost regretting that we had ever left our com- 

 fortable quarters in Kertch, we proceeded to reap 

 the reward of our long drive in a deep and dream- 

 less sleep. 



Towards morning I half awoke with an idea that 

 the house was attacked, so violent was the noise 



