EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN. 237 



game. Once you can get a view of the antelope 

 through these two sights simultaneously, you are 

 pretty sure to hit him ; but the rifle requires a 

 great deal of manipulation (sticks arranged for a 

 rest, &c.) before this desirable result can be 

 attained ; and in the meanwhile it is hardly fair 

 to expect your quarry to remain motionless. 

 Moreover, a puff of wind or a drop of moisture 

 will ensure a missfire, and altogether the antelope 

 is very fairly safe. 



After passing the Red Bridge a place famous 

 for many a daring deed of highway robbery we 

 passed a subterranean village, or what was prac- 

 tically one, the roofs being almost on a level with 

 the ground. Below these roofs are in most in- 

 stances stables, in which dark and ill-ventilated 

 dens man and horse live together. The atmo- 

 sphere is worse than a London fog in the East 

 Knd, and the only reason that these dwellings do 

 not kill those who live in them is that Tartar and 

 steed pass at least eighteen hours of tbe twenty- 

 four in the pure air of the outside world. Herein 

 lies the secret of the healtby lives and iron muscles 

 of all Nature's happily uncivilised children. Their 

 houses, it is true, are not such as would meet with 

 the full approval of a sanitary inspector of the 

 nineteenth century ; but then, they look upon them 

 as the bear looks on his den only as a place to 

 retire to for sleep, or to lie down in when sick or 



