216 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



within about a hundred yards of the spot at 

 which they would have been within sight and 

 range of our rifles, and then, getting our 

 wind, turned and bolted. 



During our night watch, the peaks above 

 had been to us as another world, still with 

 an awful silence, cloud-wrapped and full of 

 mystery, from which we waited for the wily 

 mountain beasts to creep down to our world 

 below. Now, as we faced their stiff ascents, 

 they were revealed to us in all their wild 

 barrenness. Of herbage there seemed abso- 

 lutely none, but ridge upon ridge of hard 

 argillaceous rock, its inverted strata brittle as 

 glass, but with edges sharp as razors lace- 

 rated our feet and hands until my mocassins 

 were red with my own blood. 



The only flower we saw was a large kind 

 of daisy with a yellow centre, surrounded 

 by a circle of close j^ink petals. 



Twice we caught vanishing glimpses of 



