540 THE RAINS. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE RAINS. 



Poti Chasing wild boar Red-deer Turks and Cossacks Sotcha 

 Lynxes Game in the Caucasus A hunting party A wounded 

 sow Beautiful scene An unexpected bag Our cuisine The 'evil 

 eye ' Overtaken by the rains Our tent inundated Surrounded 

 by wolves Cheerless days A terrible catastrophe Welcome 

 help Golovinsky A wild scene Eluding the storm Fording a 

 a torrent A refuge Scant supplies Cossack cradle-song The 

 Cossacks of to-day Russian plantations A terrible ride 

 Struggling for life Cossack loafers Ride to Duapse Forlorn 

 days Mad wolves Wrestling a Tartar Laid up with fever 

 Return to England. 



WE left Tiflis in a snow-shroud, which had, after 

 three days' continual fall, frozen hard. We found 

 Poti in her spring dress, bright with violets and 

 cyclamen. Here we were detained two days 

 waiting for the steamer, and it may give some idea 

 of the place, when I say that the second day was 

 passed in hunting wild boar within a verst of our 

 hotel, which is the centre of the town ; and so suc- 

 cessfully, that after plunging about in pools waist- 

 deep from dawn to mid-day, we carried back a fine 

 porker in triumph for our dinner. To help us in 

 the hunt we had some sixteen dogs and all the 

 able-bodied roughs of Poti, one of whom was armed 



