BARLEY HARVEST. 121 



singing while they reaped, while not a few of 

 them stopped from time to time to take a look 

 at or talk to the dirty little brat whose long, 

 wooden cradle they had carried from Gebi to 

 the field in the morning, and who now lay by 

 its mother's side as she worked. Not far off 

 in case of need the husband was doing his 

 share of the harvest, with his long rifle slung 

 from a bough close to his hand ; and busy 

 though he seemed, it would be a lucky cha- 

 mois who should pass in sight of those grey 

 crags the other side the valley without calling 

 the peasant from husbandry to the chase. 



When we had done about eis^ht versts 

 roughish walking, and the evening had begun 

 to close m, our guide turned aside into a basin 

 of cornfields among the forest trees, and in- 

 formed us that one of the wigwams of boughs 

 before us was to be our camp for the night. 

 Eight versts seemed a shamefully short march 

 for a day's work, but somehow no one mur- 



