THE RAINS. 365 



the Cossack station, at which we hoped to pass the 

 night, a mountain stream larger than most of its 

 fellows emptied itself into the sea, and it was of 

 this stream that we were most afraid. The Cossack 

 who brought the horses reported it extremely high, 

 but in one place still fordable, so that it was with 

 eyes fixed anxiously on the sky that we hurried on. 

 My young friend L. had become so far knocked up 

 that he thought it wiser to stay at Koylor's Datch, 

 from whence I was glad to hear that he eventually 

 got safe back to Sotcha, and thence to Tiflis. 



For the first verst or so of the sixteen we had to 

 travel before nightfall, the weather kept clear and 

 bright, after which it grew suddenly murky and 

 overcast. The sea, muddy and discoloured near the 

 shore by the unwonted access of turbid fresh water, 

 spread itself out in broad streaks of vivid green and 

 Oxford blue in the distance. The waves rose apace, 

 and came washing right under our horses' feet till 

 they touched the cliff that walled us in beyond. 

 Thunder began to mutter, and the whole under-sky 

 seemed to grow into waving plumes of dark purple 

 smoke. Then the rain came again, with sheet 

 lightning, near thunder, and little drifts of snow, 

 which seemed strangely out of place with the vivid 

 lightning. By this time the cold had grown *o 

 intense that I was glad to fasten my rapidly 

 stiffening bourka round my neck and bury myself 

 in its voluminous folds. Suddenly the snow and 



