THE RAINS. 



of the weather, the Odessa steamer would not touch 

 there for a week, so that for seven days we might 

 kick our heels and be miserable in that charming 



o 



watering-place. 



That week was too dark an era in my travels 

 to say much about it. I prefer, if possible, to 

 remember the Caucasus without Duapse. Despon- 

 dency took hold of my faithful Ivan, as soon as he 

 had got his pay : like a true Russian, he took to 

 drink, and all through my illness left me to my 

 fate, in a drunken peasant's cottage, while he wept 

 and sang by turns in the only ' duchan' in the place. 

 Day by day my throat became worse. The tele- 

 graphists were kind to me ; but neither they nor 

 the doctor (veterinary, I believe he was) knew what 

 was the matter with me ; and every night the steam 

 that rose from the damp mud floor of my room only 

 added to my illness. 



Once the Governor came to sec me ; and as he, 

 too, was a doctor, gave me some advice ; but I doubt 

 whether his prescriptions, had he left any, could 

 have been made up in his government. However, 

 he brightened half an hour for me with his chat, 

 and that, doubtless, did as much good as any medi- 

 cine would have done. He told me of some wolves 

 which had gone mad, and were keeping a couple of 

 villages in a slate of panic by their attacks, having 

 already bitten a man and several cattle, all of which 

 had since died from hydrophobia. This madness 



