158 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



and most of his clothes under the pretext of 

 taking care of them for him, we made arrange- 

 ments for him to leave Gebi for Kutais next 

 morning, to return in a week's time, and 

 rejoin us at our camp beneath the glacier of 

 Lapur. 



The next thing to be thought of was the 

 means of communication with our guides in his 

 absence, as there is always a chance of the 

 language of signs breakmg down before the 

 end of a week, and the rest of the evening I 

 spent in collecting a vocabulary of the 

 Georgian words most likely to be of everyday 

 occurrence. This done, I turned in and slept 

 long and soundly, until the crowing of cocks 

 and a contmued droning sound in the court- 

 yard below the balcony woke me to a sense 

 that Sunday mornmg had come, and the fifteen 

 days' fast of the death of the Holy Virgin was 

 ended. 



The droning under the balcony was an 



