90 THE RED FOREST AND 



several varieties of white butterflies. I also 

 noticed some large pale yellow butterflies, which 

 may have been the common brimstone, but I 

 believe were not. I am pretty sure too that I 

 recognised one ' comma.' We passed through one 

 or two villages inhabited by 'plastoons* (Russian 

 settlers), who in spite of the richness of the soil ap- 

 peared to be in the most abject poverty. On every 

 face the fever had set its yellow seal, and all the 

 women over forty were hideous enough to frighten 

 Macbeth's witches. 



Truly, this Caucasus must be the land of the 

 lotus-eaters, yet what sorry beings these lotus- 

 eaters are. All round them such beauty as Ten- 

 nyson has dreamed of ; mountains clothed in gold 

 and purple, with the sea murmuring round their 

 bases ; wealth to be had for the taking, from the 

 too luxuriant soil ; and yet here the peasant smokes 

 and moons away his life, content to cull in idleness 

 just enough to keep body and soul together, and 

 only doing just enough work to provide for him- 

 self a crop of that weed in the consumption of 

 which he wastes life and energy, as well as the 

 money and opportunities that might be his. Kach 

 village where Russians lived seemed to me more 

 wretchedly poor than the last, and it became a 

 relief to see how few and far between the villages 

 were. The Tscherkesses, who made a garden of at 

 least some parts of their native home, might almost 



