THE TEA-PLAXT. 339 



"before us, and told tlieui, through Paul, that we wished to 

 know, once for all, whether they meant to carry out the 

 agreement they had made with us. If they were dissatis- 

 fied, and wished to be off it, we were willing to return to 

 Pari, but, in that case, we should pay them nothing. The 

 porters one and all declared that they wished to come on, 

 and were quite satisfied with the terms. Having been then 

 treated to a spirited harangue from Mooi-e, on the ' whole 

 duty of man ' in connection with momitain-walking, and the 

 advantages they would reap from behaving well, the troop 

 resumed their march. For some distance the j)ath, which, 

 though broken in places, was very distinct, skirted the hill- 

 side ; but at last, by a steep and sudden descent through a 

 grand forest of pines and beeches, the bottom of the Nakra 

 valley was gained. Beneath the close branches of these 

 trees underwood seldom flourishes, and the ground was 

 carpeted with a soft moss, like that of an English glade. 



On reaching the banks of the torrent, we turned 

 up the valley by a beaten track, which, but for the 

 occasional obstruction of a fallen tree, would have been 

 practicable for horses — now thi-ough the thick wood, now 

 across glades where the rich herbage recalled to our 

 recollection the weeds of the Zones- Squali. One of the 

 porters brought us the branch of a small shrub, with the 

 explanatory remark 'tchai,' and we recognised the tea- 

 plant. We had already been informed at Pari of its exis- 

 tence in the neighbourhood, and the Cossacks there told us 

 that some of their predecessors had turned the leaves to j^rac- 

 tical account, and acquired sufiicient skill to manufacture 

 out of them a very tolerable beverage. We caught occa- 

 sional vistas of the foaming torrent of the Nakra, which 

 falls in a prolonged rapid, dashed into sheets of white foam, 

 over the granite boulders it has brought down with it from 

 the central chain. The blue sky was bright overhead, and 



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