5 2 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 



butcher as the whips do when the huntsman is 

 breaking up his fox, to keep the brutes at bay. 

 Then the meat was parcelled out, the money paid, 

 cash down, the entrails, tied up in the skin 

 (butcher's perquisites), thrown back into the cart, 

 and after a drink of sour cream at the dirty brown 

 hands of a Tartar princess, we were on our way 

 for the next village, to repeat the same process. 



And now all our sheep having been slaughtered 

 and sold, the gloaming came on, and with it a 

 hunger on my part that made me anxious to get 

 back to my quarters at the friendly Armenian's. 

 Turning to the Tartar, I suggested our return, 

 when he coolly informed me that I had better make 



up my mind to pass the night at his house at J , 



naming a village of some half-dozen houses, at 

 which an execrable murder had occurred some 

 months previously. It may have been the memory 

 of this, or it may have been his ghastly handiuess 

 with the butcher's knife, or perhaps the thought of 

 my cosy quarters at Miskitchec, that made me 

 resolve that go to that place T would not. Accor- 

 dingly T reminded him of his promise. All the 

 satisfaction I could get was that if T wanted to go 

 back I must walk. Did I know in which direction 

 Miskitchec lay ? Yes, out yonder, over that low 

 line of hills. A grim laugh, and the assurance that 

 Miskitchee was in an exactly opposite direction, 

 increased my suspicions of rny quondam friend, as I 



