TIFLIS. 207 



going some three versts, that seemed to us thirty, 

 we took our guide's advice, and, hobbling our 

 horses, rolled ourselves in our bourkas, to lie 

 waiting in the dark until the dim light stealing 

 over the plains should show us the antelopes 

 browsing within rifle-shot. But all our dreams 

 had to be of the waking sort, for the intense chill 

 made it too cold to sleep, and, though the grey 

 dawn showed us no confiding herds, it was none 

 the less welcome on that account. 



Gradually around us there grew out of the 

 darkness a plain flatter than all fancy can fashion, 

 with never a tree nor a bush to break the mono- 

 tony, or to afford concealment to any living thing. 

 Round this there rose slowly on the sight a chain 

 of low hills, with the river and the low mountains 

 running at right angles to them ; and on the other 

 two sides steppe unbroken to the horizon. And 

 now we rose and shook away the chill and the 

 torpor it had brought into our blood, and with 

 a pang of regret for that tub which circumstances 

 so often denied, we buckled our bourkas on to our 

 horses, slipped cartridges into our rifles, and spread- 

 ing out into line, shaped our course across the still 

 dim steppe for the low hills beyond. 



As the dawn brightened we began to fancy 

 ghost-like figures flitted away over the horizon into 

 the unseen beyond, and at last we made out clearly 

 a herd of some thirty antelopes. As they scudded, 



