264 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



round me, and then with a shiver crouch into 

 his own few rags and curl himself up like a 

 faithful watch dog at my feet. Of course, as 

 soon as I thought he slept I returned the loan, 

 but when I woke I was rolled up in it again. 

 I was very sorry to lose Simon ; for, 

 though he would always smoke when he 

 ought not to (and indeed when he ought to 

 as well, if there is such a time), though he 

 would waste hours eating quantities of fruit 

 which would have given any three other men 

 cholera, and making scores of reed pipes, out 

 of none of which he ever got a tune, he was 

 for all that so bright-tempered, so honest, 

 light-hearted, so enormously strong, so capable 

 of enduring prolonged abstinence and fatigue, 

 so kindly and quick to see what you wanted, 

 and to supply the want, that I am bound to 

 say, in looking back, I regard him as the best 

 fellow I ever met in the Caucasus. Yassili, 

 Frank's servant, thouo-h not so strono- or clever 



