138 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



Our cooking utensils were of a primitive 

 order — one blackened earthenware pot, in wliich 

 we boiled one diminutive fowl at a time, and 

 a broken wooden cup, from which we drank 

 the soup in turns. But though rough they 

 served our turn, and being refreshed we began 

 to thmk of preparing a more comfortable 

 abode for ourselves than the smoky little 

 bear's den, with its blackened boulders and 

 cramped accommodation. But it was no good. 

 There was not a level place on which to pitch 

 our tent apparently nearer than Gebi. So we 

 had to give it up. 



All day long our men sat smoking and 

 cleaning their rifles, and a wilder or more 

 picturesque group than they made it would 

 be hard to imagine, in their sheepskm tur- 

 bans, brown cloth gaiters, sandals, canvas 

 shirts and long togas originally of a rock 

 brown, but now so patched with cloths of 

 every hue — red, brown, yellow, and grey — that 



