A PIJIMITIVE STAIRWAY. 7 



said to him, bat he shook hands suspiciously, 

 looked with a good deal of contempt at my 

 ' Express ' rifle, satisfied himself that the bear- 

 skins were fresh, laughed grimly at the partly 

 stuffed chamois head, which I had carried 

 with much care from Lapur, and then shuffled 

 off again into his den. But the insj^ection 

 had been satisfactory, and about 3.30 we 

 were taken round to another door, and 

 ushered into the best room in Ushkul, which 

 Simon II. had been preparing for us. 



Three rough blocks of stone piled together 

 made a primitive stairway out of the deep 

 mud outside to the level of the room. A kind 

 of shutter, now withdrawn, closed the door- 

 way at night. Withm was an irregular mud- 

 floor about twelve paces square. In a slight 

 depression in the middle of it stood a table 

 of slate on three leg's for bakino" maize-cakes 

 on, while under it were the red ashes of a 

 wood-fire. There was no chimney to let the 



