220 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



been before us, and our prey had moved oif to 

 lonelier fastnesses. 



Not once or twice but many times during 

 the day, we came across the lairs of Svanetian 

 hunters ; dens like the dens of wild beasts, 

 between great masses of upright slate rock, 

 on the very edge of the highest ridges. 



What always seemed most strange to me 

 in the nature of these men, when I came to 

 know them afterwards, was that there seemed 

 so little superstition or poetry amongst them. 

 Surely some wild legends should grow out of 

 the minds of men who pass long solitary 

 nights in these lonely heights, their only 

 music the keen shrill signal of the chamois or 

 'djikve,' the rush of the wild hawk's wing, as it 

 brushes close past their lair, the throbbing of 

 the mountain breezes round the peaks, and the 

 murmur of the mountain stream. But if they 

 had any folk lore amongst them, if the armies 

 of mist and cloud and the voices of Nature in 



