THE RAINS. 369 



of the wolves is not by any means unfrequent, I was 

 told, and, strangely enough, generally takes place 

 during the coldest part of the year. I had intended 

 to have gone to the villages in the morning to see 

 what I could do for the peasants with my ' express,' 

 but was unluckily tempted into a wrestling match 

 with a celebrated native wrestler ; and the exertion 

 of winning one fall out of three against him was 

 the last straw that broke the camel-like back of my 

 constitution. The fellow was a capital wrestler and 

 extremely strong ; he had acquired some of his best 

 throws, oddly enough, in England ; so that, though 

 he threw me handsomely twice, I could console 

 myself with the reflection that he had learnt to do 

 it in my own country. 



That night there was a wedding in Duapse, and 

 every one naturally got drunk ; and whilst I was 

 tossing in high fever on my bed a score of drunken 

 moujiks in enormous boots were dancing and shout- 

 ing in the next room. Two nights this lasted ; at 

 the end of the second, when I was very nearly 

 beyond any further enduring power, Providence 

 willed it that the steamer should arrive ; and as the 

 doctor insisted that I had nothing more than a bad 

 sore-throat the matter with me, I was taken on 

 board and landed at Kertch, in a critical stage of a 

 violent attack of diphtheria. 



So ended my shooting adventures in the Cau- 

 casus, and I may well be thankful that in the person 



P, 15 



