74 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



undeftake to bring me four horses on the 

 morrow, and having stipulated that the horses 

 should be ready at the hotel by six, I recon- 

 ciled myself to this further delay and ordered 

 dinner, feeling limp and hoarse with the trials 

 of voice and temper to which I had been 

 subjected. 



Dinner over, Frank and I set to work to 

 prepare cartridges and pack up what few 

 things we meant to take with us on our 

 journey, which done we turned in ready for 

 an early start on the morrow. But with 

 morning came no horses nor any message 

 from their owner. A protracted search re- 

 sulted in his appearance about lunch time to 

 say that he had changed his mind, and could 

 not undertake the job for less than double 

 the sum he had agreed for the previous even- 

 ino-. He had heard what the other Jews had 

 been asking us, and was ashamed of the 

 modesty of his own demands. He, too, like 



