400 THE TCIIEREK VALLEY. 



among wliicli we noticed the pear, the apple, the plum, and 

 the medlar, their gnarled boughs hung with long creepers. 



We came in sight of the Tcherek, where, issuing from 

 the hills a broad rapid river, it strikes out into the steppe, 

 and runs through marshy ground, fairly timbered in 

 comparison to the barren tracts beyond. It was a deso- 

 late view, the surrounding country being absolutely in 

 a state of nature, and showing no traces of the neigh- 

 bourhood or care of man. Once fairly free from the 

 hills, the river divides into a dozen branches, and, until it 

 joins the Terek, flows through a dreary swamp, unin- 

 habited except by wild boars. From the brow of a steej) 

 though short descent, we looked down on the hamlet of 

 Dogiijokova, which, like most of the Tcherkess villages of 

 the plain, consists of a long double row of one-storied 

 cottages, surrounded by sheds and fenced-in gardens, 

 calling to mind pictures of a South- African kraal. 



We halted for lunch on the bank of a stream flowing out 

 of the range that overlooks ISTaltschik. The direction of our 

 course had now changed, and we were riding south-west 

 in place of south-east. A few hundred yards of level land 

 generally stretched between the Tcherek and the base of 

 the hills, but once or twice the path was forced to climb a 

 bold bluff, breaking down abruptly in chalk cliffs to the 

 river. The meadows were clothed in luxuriant herbage, 

 which, nov uncut and ungrazed, was rapidly running to 

 seed ; the ' glossy purples ' of the gigantic thistleheads 

 specially attracted our admiration, and quite justified the 

 Laureate in declaring that they can at times ' outredden 

 all voluptuous garden-roses.' Occasionally a group of tall 

 tombstones, each seven or eight feet high, capped by a 

 carved turban, and chiseled with a long inscription in the 

 language of the country, stood out above the long grass. We 

 tried hard th'"0ugh Paul to get at their history, but could 



