210 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



had, it seems, gone down to Sugdidi early in 

 the spring, and sold all the marten skins which 

 they had collected in the forest of Lekera 

 during the winter. Anxious to add to their 

 earnings before returning to their villages they 

 had engaged themselves to a contractor near 

 Sugdidi, who had set them to work digging 

 out the foundations of a road he was making 

 through a marsh there. They told us that as 

 from the first they were entirely in his hands 

 he had worked them as he dared not work 

 the natives of the place, keeping them em- 

 ployed waist deep in muddy trenches until all 

 had fever, and some died of it. Then, after 

 six weeks' work, they were obliged to give up 

 the job before it should kill them all, and on 

 some excuse or another this brutal task- 

 master had dismissed them without a kopeck 

 of their pay. 



Possibly, by some legal quibble the con- 

 tractor was justified in refusing to pay these 



