248 EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN. 



with this came the news that these mountains 

 were so ill-famed on account of the brigands who 

 haunted them that scarcely any of the villagers 

 had ever been there, and none would go again for 

 any wage I liked to offer. This I received doubt- 

 fully, and through my man made many offers, but 

 even ten roubles a day were refused by moujiks to 

 whom a hundred roubles would have been a for- 

 tune with which to rest content for life. However, 

 though I began to believe in the reality of the 

 brigands, more especially as a post-cart had during 

 the last few days been canned off bodily in broad 

 daylight, I determined to wait a day and see 

 whether no one would come to accept my liberal 

 offer. 



The day of waiting was spent in shooting 

 hares and red-legs on the nearest hills, whose steep 

 sides were simply alive with these swift-footed 

 birds, running like flies on the almost perpendicular 

 faces of the cliffs, or coining like bullets overhead 

 as my man drove them to me. The difficulty of 

 approaching the birds as, though continually in 

 sight, they would never rise and never stop running 

 reminded me of other days over the stiff furrows 

 of Northamptonshire ; though, even with the help 

 of a sturdy Tartar, J found the bare rocks and 

 mud-faced crumbling hillsides worse going than 

 the wet ridge and furrow. The hills were covered 

 with dwarf larch and pomegranate- trees, the fruit 



