RETURN TO KERTCIL 169 



from various English residents in the Caucasus 

 that I was suspected of being a British agent, and, 

 as such, was fully described to the police, and 

 carefully watched. Unluckily for me, the boat to 

 Kertch only calls ever} 7 Wednesday, so that I had 

 three weary days to pass in Duapse. 



One of these I spent in a visit to a mountain 

 farm belonging to a German baron, and worked 

 by two young Germans, his bailiffs. Here I saw 

 a collection of insects made on the farm, and 

 amongst them recognised, in addition to the 

 species I have mentioned as seen by me before, 

 both the British varieties of the swallow-tailed 

 butterfly, the small wood white, the marbled white, 

 the privet, and the elephant hawk moth, as well 

 as the death's head, which abounds here. There 

 were also oak-eggers and stag-beetles, as well as 

 another hawk moth of a delicate fawn colour, which 



was strange to me. 



Returning from the hill farm I had an adven- 

 ture which might have terminated worse. The 

 road from Duapse to the farm, which is situated 

 at a great height above the sea, winds about the 

 hill in zigzag lines. Over the road, which is 

 steep and rough, hang the edges of the forest, and 

 from time to time it crosses a rough wooden 

 bridge, spanning a chasm of considerable pre- 

 tensions. By daylight these chasms and their 

 wooden bridges mattered but little, for though 



