THE RAINS. 367 



Iii the course of the evening my men arrived, 

 having saved most of the baggage, which had got 

 loose from the unfortunate packhorse, and when I 

 woke in the morning I found myself quite a hero 

 for my swim, and, better than that, a hero with 

 some moderately clean dry clothes to get into. In 

 the night, nevertheless, the gallant Cossacks' 

 chivalry and respect had not prevented their 

 stealing my watch and what remained of my 

 sodden cigars. Having dried these in the oven, 

 they had converted them into fine-cut tobacco, 

 which, when I woke, had provided every loafer 

 amongst them with a little store of cigarettes. 

 But my throat warned me that it was no time to 

 make a trouble of trifles, and that it was impera- 

 tively necessary to get back to Duapse at once, 

 catch the boat thence on the morrow, and get to 

 Kertch in time for medical advice if I needed it. 



In the night the sea had come up to the foot of 

 the cliffs, thus barring the usual road to Duapse, and 

 obliging us to ride some forty versts, by precipitous 

 and rugged bridle-roads, over the cliffs, during 

 whJch ride the horses' vile pace, the infernal machine 

 called a Tartar saddle, and the ruggedness of the 

 roads combined to inflict on my already aching 

 frame unspeakable tortures. Worse than all, when 

 the last jolt had been suffered, and the last writhing 

 submitted to in fording the stream that separated us 

 from Duapse, we found that, owing to the bad state 



