264 THE LESGHIAN MOUNTAINS. 



and rice had been cleared away, two little Lesghian 

 boys came in to have a look at their father's 

 guests ; and never in my life have I seen such 

 sturdy, handsome youngsters as these two sun- 

 browned little shepherds of seven and eight re- 

 spectively. Early in the morning, before the sun 

 had risen, these two young mountaineers were 

 astir, waked by the bell of Shaitan, the long- 

 bearded chief of their herd of goats. With crooks 

 in hand, in rough togas of sheepskin, I watched 

 the fine little fellows leading their hundred or more 

 goats up steep mountain tracks, to pastures that 

 hung far above the hamlet in the glen ; and often 

 during the day w r e caught glimpses of them and 

 their charge on some precipitous pasture, or heard 

 the distant notes of the rough flutes with which 

 they amused themselves. 



With such early training as this taught at 



J O c^> 



seven to rely on their own resources, and take 

 charge of such wilful beasts as goats on a mountain 

 pasture it is small wonder that Lesghians have 

 numbered amongst them such leaders as Schamyl 

 and Mansur l^ey. Nor is it wonderful that, passing 

 year after year of their lives in the solitary grandeur 

 of their own mountains, they become the priest-led, 

 superstitious people they are. Schamyl the leader 

 would have had but little influence had he not also 

 been Schamyl ihe prophet, the divinely protected. 

 I have frequently heard llussians s:iy that the only 



