288 FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN. 



Aksu, were versts of misery and discomfort hard 

 to bear. 



At Aksu the postmaster refused to give us 

 horses, alleging that, in the present state of the 

 weather, to attempt the range of hills between his 

 station and Shemakha would only result in the 

 destruction of the post- cart, loss of horses, and 

 broken limbs for the fares, especially now that the 

 mists and darkness of night were rendering what 

 road there was invisible. 



On the road, before reaching Aksu, we came 

 across three of the brigands of whom we have 

 heard so much, in charge of a band of ' tchapars ' 

 (mounted policemen), who seemed avast deal more 

 like the highwaymen of romance than their sorry- 

 looking captives did. On the morning of De- 

 cember 28 we left Aksu for Shemakha, a distance of 

 forty versts, over hills whose sides were like wet 

 ploughed fields. Here the post-cart wa.s unable to 

 proceed as fast as we could walk, so that we 

 .solaced ourselves by shooting en route, and derived 

 some consolation from the abundance of game which 

 we found on these hillsides. Red-legs, hares, and 

 pheasants swarmed ; and what with these, the owls, 

 and other birds of prey with which the hills 

 teemed, we had a very lively time. Wolves, too, 

 have their haunts here, as witness a, deserted post- 

 cart, on the horses attached to which a traveller 

 and his ycmstchik had escaped during the preced- 



