54 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



ao-ent informed ns, had arrano-ed liis ffreat 

 mountain drive for the very week of our 

 arrival ; the guests were invited and the cart- 

 ridges even loaded. And, moreover, thanks 

 to the Prince's well-known courtesy to 

 strangers, not less than to a letter from an 

 intimate friend of his, our invitations to be 

 of the party and a hearty welcome were not 

 matters of doubt. 



As I had heard from time to time, like all 

 other travellers in the Caucasus, of these 

 grand battues, at which, so report says, as 

 many as sixty head of tur {Capra Caucasica) 

 and chamois have been killed in a day, I was 

 naturally delighted at the prospect before me, 

 though as an ordinary thing I would consider 

 mountain game far too noble to kill like 

 ' dumb driven cattle,' with no better chance 

 of escaping the bullet than has the running 

 deer at Wimbledon. Bat my informant 

 dashed my hopes to the ground in the same 



