TIFLIS. 209 



near any town in the Caucasus, large flocks of 

 sheep are pastured ; at Karias their shepherds are 

 Tartars, whose pens and huts are in the low hills, 

 at whose foot I had now nearly arrived ; but that 

 I did not know till later. Whilst still half a mile 

 from the hills, I noticed a large herd of antelopes 

 galloping for a point, to gain which they had to 

 cross my line of march about a quarter of a verst 

 in front of me. The herd looked as if it had been 

 recently fired at, and some of its members were 

 far behind the leaders, who had already crossed 

 me. Hoping that these laggards would not per- 

 haps swerve from the line of the rest, I ran as hard 

 as I could to intercept them, and was rewarded by 

 two long shots, which apparently did not tell. 



Though the shots did not affect the antelopes 

 they led me into a most unpleasant adventure. 

 Drowsing at some distance was an immense flock 

 of sheep, and at the sound of my rifle a do/en of 

 the huge grey dogs who guard these flocks came 

 racing towards me, loudly manifesting their dis- 

 pleasure at my presence as they came. Often 

 before had I been annoyed by these gaunt beasts 

 in the Crimea and elsewhere, and even known them 

 board a traveller's cart as it passed through one of 

 the Tartar villages they infested, but never before 

 had I seen them look so much in earnest as they 

 did to-day. They were all round me in a minute ; 

 and though still preserving a discreet distance, 



P 



