THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS. 
481 
indeed, “ feeling our darkling way,” we managed at last to get 
safely through them; and soon after, our Serdasht Courd told us 
we should reach the village of Yeltomar, a most miserable and 
savage place. Cold and hungry as we were, any shelter promised 
us comfort, even were it no better than sharing the stable with 
our mules and horses ; and at midnight precisely, we drew near 
the place, but the mehmandar had so ill an opinion of the in¬ 
habitants, he would not go forward alone. He therefore took 
whom he pleased with him, while the rest of us remained full 
half an hour shivering in the now hard freezing air, vainly 
hoping to be admitted under some roof. His reception had 
been as brutal as he expected, neither money nor words pre¬ 
vailing on them to give lodging or food for man or beast; and, 
constrained to seek a shelter for ourselves, we at last found a 
place, half cave half hut, already nearly filled with travelling 
mountaineers. Rude as their aspects were, they were charitable 
enough to crowd closer together, to make room for myself and 
followers; but our poor animals were obliged to be picketed, 
unfed, for the rest of the bleak night at the entrance of our 
quarters. Hungry and fatigued, we made ourselves as comfort¬ 
able as might be, near a fire of heaped-up wood, which blazed on 
a sort of square projecting hearth at the upper end of the caverned 
apartment, the smoke escaping from a hole just above. The 
scene, when my thawed faculties could observe it, reminded me 
of the dark yet splendid pictures of Rembrandt, where the par¬ 
tial effect from a strong light flashes upon some near group of 
persons, and occasionally plays on others more distant and in¬ 
distinct. The resemblance was rendered yet more striking by 
the wild Asiatic and turbaned figures on which the flame un¬ 
steadily gleamed, lighting their dark and fierce visages, and 
VOL. II. 3 Q 
