260 THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS. 



we rode through the main street, women drew up 

 their white wrappings round their eyes, and scut- 

 tled away like rabbits as you pass through their 

 warren. On the outskirts of the village was a large 

 graveyard full of tall trees and grey old stones, on 

 which the shadows fell ; while through the half 

 light a woman, in the white robe peculiar to her 

 people, recalled a hundred and one ghost stories, 

 which had frightened me into good behaviour as a 

 child. 



Just outside the village I shot a fine grey 

 squirrel, the first squirrel I have seen in the 

 Caucasus, where their skins are much prized, the 

 furriers of Tiflis demanding as much as one rouble 

 seventy- five copecks for such a skin as the one I 

 secured. As the light failed, and we were beginning 

 to feel the corners and inequalities in our saddles in 

 a way that told us plainly how tired we were get- 

 ting, another village came in sight ; and here we 

 decided to rest, though Allai did not by any means 

 approve of the suggestion. On asking for food we 

 were politely cursed to our faces ; and when at last, 

 in the middle of the bazaar, we found a ' duchan ' 

 (inn), it was of so uninviting an aspect that a good 

 appetite was necessary to tempt a traveller inside 

 it. Under a wide awning was a room open on 

 three sides to within some four feet of the ground, 

 and inside this enclosure was a kind of dresser 

 sloping gradually from the back wall of the place 



