RETURN TO TIFLIS. 313 



that instead of killing outright those which were 

 not yet dead, he took the trouble to break their 

 legs and wings, and so cast them a living, helpless 

 mass of pain and fear into the bottom of his boat, 

 there to live for hours in horrible anguish. We 

 explained to the fellow hew much simpler for him, 

 and how much kinder to the birds it would be, 

 to wring their necks outright ; but we might have 

 spared ourselves the trouble. The Tartar intellect 

 could not comprehend the beauty of mercy, and all 

 we could get was a grin and the assurance that if 

 he did not break their legs or wings they would 

 escape him ; and as he might be out a day or two, if 

 he killed them at once they would not be fresh 

 when taken to market. It was no good arguing 

 any more ; so merely insisting on putting all he had 

 so far taken out of their misery with our own 

 hands, we left him, feeling that were we to give 

 way to our own impulses he would have spent the 

 next few hours with four broken limbs in the 

 bottom of his own boat. The water-hens are sold 

 at about fivepence, wild duck at about sixpence a 

 brace. 



On the far side of the lake a troop of villagers 

 were waiting to carry our bnggage through the 

 swampy forest, where neither horse nor cart 

 could now conveniently travel, to our host's log 

 hut. 



The chief objects of cultivation here were rice 



