THE LAND OF THE STALKING DEATH 



405 



physician and I entrained again and were 

 soon passing- through magnificent moun- 

 tain scenery fairly Alpine in character- 

 snow peaks far overhead, and herds 

 agraze in the green lowlands, where the 

 yellow loriki shrub blazed along the banks 

 of muddy torrents. 



Halting at a mountain village, where 

 tall herdsmen in fleece-lined jackets and 

 disheveled, mop-like headgear turned 

 aside from their shaggy flocks to stare at 

 our American khaki, we discovered that 

 we were in the disputed zone between 

 Georgia and Armenia. 



Notwithstanding a posted proclamation 

 which forbade the carrying of firearms, 

 our Georgian engine-driver virtually put 

 a pistol to our heads by refusing to go 

 further until three hundred rubles were 

 paid him. Now, engine-drivers are hardly 

 as common as snowballs in the Bambak 

 Defile, and some American officials in a 

 carriage ahead of ours weakly produced 

 the required sum. 



CURBING THE CUPIDITY OF A GEORGIAN 

 BLACKMAILER 



I strolled out on the platform and shook 

 hands with a pink-cheeked British young- 

 ster, who, assisted by a handful of Sikh 

 troops, was "keeping the line clear," as 

 he expressed it, in those distant and dubi- 

 ous regions. 



"How do you do?" said the youngster 

 politely. "Engine running all right, I 

 hope?" 



"It ought to," I replied. "We've just 

 greased the driver with three hundred 

 rubles." 



"Ye gods !" ejaculated the youngster, 

 and was off like a cracked whip. Before 

 you knew it, he had confronted the 

 wretched blackmailer with accusers, had 

 reimbursed our party from the man's 

 pockets, and was giving certain orders to 

 a couple of his Sikhs. The Americans, 

 apprehending future trouble, were willing 

 to waive the money. Not so the youthful 

 Britisher. 



"Sorry !" he said, with polite firmness. 

 "But I can't, you know. No difficulties 

 ahead, I assure you. Armed guard, a 

 couple of bayonets at the fellow's back — 

 really very simple, you know." 



And that is how it was done. As we 

 rolled off, answering the salute of that 



rosy-cheeked youngster — the only Euro- 

 pean in those troublesome mountain- 

 ringed regions — a certain admiration 

 which possessed us was given voice bv 

 some one who remarked thoughtfully, 

 "And of such is the British Empire !" 



THE TRAGIC-EACED CHORUS 



From time to time an extra box-car was 

 hitched on behind us and filled with the 

 refugees, who wandered aimlessly about 

 the station platforms. They were mere 

 remnants of families — a woman who had 

 lost her children, a husband who had lost 

 his wife, a little boy who had nobody in 

 the world and who wept to be taken along 

 with us — anywhere, away from starva- 

 tion — for all were emaciated, and showed 

 frightened eyes that seemed to stare 

 flinchingly at Famine's stalking specter. 



"Where, sir? They're going nowhere 

 in particular, sir," answered the British 

 soldier whom I questioned. "They just 

 travel up and down the line, day after 

 day, looking for a town where maybe 

 there'll be bread. Ah, maybe! They 

 sleep and die on station platforms or else 

 in the trains ; and so it goes, week after 

 week. But I'm thinking, sir, that they 

 never find that town where there's bread." 



Meanwhile the snowy peaks overhead, 

 aglow in the sunset, lent their serene 

 background and the mountain torrents 

 their music to set off that ragged, tragic- 

 faced chorus which wandered up and 

 down their set scene — the gray, institu- 

 tional-looking exterior of a Russian rail- 

 way station. 



Next morning we were across the 

 border in Karakillisse, a mountain town 

 which contained with its environs some 

 ten thousand Armenian refugees. Here 

 famine conditions had obtained for six 

 months and, as elsewhere, the Turkish 

 troops had left the place as bare as a 

 picked bone. There was no flour, no 

 seed, not an agricultural tool — nothing 

 but Destitution, whose bony hand had 

 laid blight everywhere. 



The straggling streets showed boarded- 

 up shops and masses of burlap-clothed 

 wretches, who pressed about us with 

 tears and prayers and outstretched hands. 

 The local bake-shop contained a heap of 

 flour, about the size of a child's sand pile, 

 while near by stood a man with scales and 



