122 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



mured. Our hut was a circular structure of 

 bent boughs put together when still green in 

 the early summer, with all their foliage left on. 

 By the tent pole in the centre were a few 

 slabs of slate, and here we soon built up a 

 fire, that lit up the interior with a ruddy glow, 

 and kept us constantly employed picking up 

 sparks which shot right and left into our 

 bedding of dry fern and hay, which was massed 

 up round the wall of our wigwam. It seemed 

 as if the whole thing must be in a blaze every 

 moment ; but this feeling soon went off, and, 

 though we were cooking our last chicken, we 

 felt no foreboding. While leaning back in our 

 scented couches we listened to peasants sing- 

 ing somewhere in the woods above us, and 

 gave ourselves up to laziness and tobacco. 



After supper we took our rifles and 

 strolled out round the edges of the cornfields, 

 in the hope that somewhere where the forest 

 threw its darkest shadows we might find a 



