A SVANETIAN NEST. 249 



neio'hbours. Round bim and at his foot he 



o 



had spread a dee[) thick carpet of fallen pine 

 needles, the softest couch the forest affords, 

 and in these, snugly ensconced between two 

 projecting roots, some Svanetian hunter had 

 made himself a nest, round and cosy as a 

 bird's, sheltered from wmd and rain by the 

 boughs and roots of the old tree. Withm 

 hearing of this nest was the rush of one of the 

 little rills that run to feed the Zesku, and here 

 we drank long and greedily, only regretting 

 that we had not chanced upon these good 

 quarters the night before. 



All the countiy hereabouts is a kind of 

 border or debatable land, between Radcha and 

 Svanetia. Herein no man lives and only the 

 adventurous feed their flocks. Under almost 

 every tall pine, from which water is not far 

 distant, and in every mountain cave, are dead 

 fires and blackened hearth stones, to mark the 

 place in which cattle lifter or sportsman has 



