A DANGEROUS FORD. 127 



coining down from the hills in lumps of brown water. 

 Fortunately, we had plenty of assistance in our difficulties, 

 from a band of natives who were on the look-out to earn 

 some honest copecks. One rode alongside, to direct and 

 cheer the horses ; two others, half-naked, hung on to the 

 side of the ' paraclodnaia,' which met the force of the 

 stream, and helped to prevent our being borne away. 



When all was ready we plunged in. The stream, four 

 feet deep, poured through the cart, but the horses fought 

 gamely, and we soon found ourselves in shallow water, in 

 the centre of the flood ; another plunge, another sharp 

 but short struggle, and we were landed in safety on the 

 further hank. As we looked back on the cart containing 

 Paul and Francois, still surrounded by the water, the burly 

 form of the latter, standing erect, to escape wetting, re- 

 minded us ludicrously of Pharaoh in the Eed Sea, as re- 

 presented in children's Bible-pictures. After distributing 

 a well-earned ' backsheesh ' among the men who had aided 

 us, we pursued our journey over the wide dull plain. Our 

 driver was, in more ways than one, a cool hand ; and having 

 done his business so well in the passage of the river, seemed 

 to consider he was now entitled to take his pleasure, which 

 he did by deliberately pulling wp at a halfway house, and 

 keeping us waiting while he took a glass of ' vodka ' and 

 smoked a pipe. As rain was again beginning to fall heavily, 

 our patience did not endure long, and having captured our 

 sybarite, we induced him to hurry on to the next station, 

 which was in sight, on a low hill at the further end of the 

 plain. On arrival we were met with the dismal intelli- 

 gence that there was nothing to eat, but, like most official 

 assertions, this turned out not to be strictly true ; and 

 Paul succeeded in unearthing new milk, tea, and eggs — so 

 that, with the chickens and cheese we had brought from 

 Erivan, we made no bad supper. If the sleeping accom- 



