1. Bareback to Kobi  
I HAD given Nicholas an address, Poste Restante, Mleti, and as Mleti is in the province of Tiflis, on the other side of the mountains, it took several days’ tramping to get there. I set off one August morning. The following are pages from my diary:
 
Kobi, 10th August, 6 a.m.
I am sitting on the stone wall of a bridge and am spread to the sun. Last night I slept on a ledge of red porphyry rock beside some moss and grasses; the dew was very heavy and I felt cold. I don’t think I slept much, but I feel pretty fit at this moment, sitting as I am in the sun on this bridge. I got up at the first sign of dawn and went to one of the inns of the village—each village has several inns of a kind, half grocer’s shop and half wine house—dukhans they call them. The samovar was actually on the table steaming. Hot tea was wonderful after such a cold night.
 
KAZBEK POSTING-STATION
 
This village is six thousand feet up, and I should probably 272 have slept at the posting-station, but I arrived too late last night. So I slept out again as on the last three nights. I had a very lively journey hither. I left the Kazbek Station yesterday evening, and thought to find a comfortable sleeping-place in the barley fields that lay between the road and the River Terek; but just as I was beginning my tramp an Ossetine came up with four horses and asked would I care to ride one. It was a bareback business, and I rather fought shy of it, but he pointed out a quiet horse and assured me we should go gently. We should need to go gently if I was going to feel comfortable after eighteen versts of it. There were of course neither stirrups nor saddle, and as I had a blanket across my back I made a saddle of that. I felt ridiculously stiff in the legs, for I had walked thirty miles already, but I managed to scramble on to the horse’s back. The Ossetine disengaged his horse from the other three and rode separately. I had two horses at my side. It was very uncomfortable riding, but I soon learnt what to do; how to kick him if the horse went too slow; how to cry brrrrr if I wanted him to stop. But, oh! how sore I got. After five versts I began to ride side-saddle. At six versts we stopped at a wineshop, another dukhan; there are plenty of them along the road. There is no Government monopoly of spirits on this side of the Caucasus. They can’t enforce that on a population that has produced its own wines for centuries. I did not much want to stop but the Ossetine 273did. He was an unprofitable companion, for utter stupidity he would be hard to be matched; he was almost totally lacking in intelligence. He put on a thoughtful look whenever he was addressed, and answered something irrelevant. I do not think he could understand any sentence in which the word wine did not occur, hence his astonishing imbecility. His face was reminiscent of the sun shining through a shower of rain, eyes and moustache wet-looking, and the latter yellow and shiny—in his eyes fore-knowledge of wine—also remembrance of wine. A boy came out of the dukhan and tied our horses to posts. The Ossetine became very gay and festive, and directly he got into the shop slapped the innkeeper on the back, and ordered sixpennyworth of white wine, which meant a bucketful. It had a look of the tea I have made from the Terek when the river has been very muddy, and it was a trifle fiery. I drank two glasses and the man had the rest. When the bucket was dry he began to be very sympathetic with me. I had only had two glasses; what a pity there wasn’t any more. Shouldn’t we have some red wine now? But I wasn’t going to buy him any more wine, and I had a wish to get to Kobi in fairly decent style, so I said, “No thanks, I don’t want any more, but if you want another drink you order it; don’t be shy on my account. I haven’t any more money.” This conference had lasted some time; it was getting darker; I did not want to arrive in Kobi 274after night-fall; it would then be difficult to find a soft place to encamp for the night. But the host brought in tea. This was free of charge, and so we sipped it, and played with it, while the Ossetine tried to persuade me to stand him another bucket of wine. He failed; we went out. He was drunk before we dismounted, and now he was at the fighting stage. He had separated the horses differently at the inn, so that I was with one only; and now, without a word of warning, he slashed them from behind with a whip. We went off at a gallop; he brought his two horses into line, and we went forward neck to neck full pelt for two versts as if we were a desperate cavalry charge. It was fearfully thrilling! We came to a sudden halt at a turn of the road in order to let a cart pass; we were all four horses, all scrunched and cooped up in a corner. The Ossetine swore by all his saints if he had any—he was a Mahommedan—for my horse was backing into him, and kicking out with its hind legs. Then suddenly we left the road and cantered over the moor to the Terek. The river was by no means so impetuous there as in the Dariel Gorge, and we forded it. What a kicking and splashing we made, and how the horses stumbled! I thought I should have been pitched into the water. Of course I got drenched to the knees as it was. After this I had to dismount and put my rug straight, and the first thing that happened after I got on again was most startling—the flame, flash and bang of a revolver just 275in front of me, and the Ossetine tearing off as if he were possessed. I thought someone had shot at him, especially as he signalled to me over his shoulder. I kicked my steed, brought him along sharply and got abreast of him. It was the Ossetine who had fired, and two minutes later he fired again. The wild man was brandishing his weapon and shouting in his own language. Then he grinned at me, and said in Russian, “No one’s going to touch me, eh?” I felt apprehension, and took good care to keep behind him. I did not want a bullet in my back. He continued to flare about, and pull up his horse at unexpected moments, and with such severity that it pawed the air. Presently, whilst we were leading our horses down some steep rocks amid a litter of stones, it seemed he fired at me. I asked him to be careful and he grinned maliciously. Then we re-forded the Terek and regained the road, which was a relief, for there is less chance of being murdered on the highway than among the rocks. The Ossetine became very sulky; he had evidently been long on the way and would be abused by his master when he got to Kobi. No pace was quick enough for him; I think if I had been thrown he would have left me by the wayside and charged ahead full gallop with the four horses. I was glad enough, therefore, when the lights of Kobi appeared. I dismounted outside the village and walked in. The wine and the tea and the gallop made me feel more queer than a rough Channel passage 276would have done. Then I wished I had some number to write down, that would indicate how tired my legs were of clasping that horse’s back.
 
I slept on the hard rock, or did not sleep, and had hot tea in the morning, and here I am. I shall take things easily to-day.
 
This is a beautiful place, a wide trough of black earth high up among the mountains. It has an immense sky for a mountain village, and the air is buoyant, fresh, perfect. All around are rosy porphyry rocks, and like a gleam in fairyland the sunlight comes upon them at dawn. This is the village to have a cottage in; it is perfectly beautiful and in the heart of the mountains, and is at cross-roads. Only the flowers are few; perhaps it stands too high. The water flowing under this bridge is green and clear and cold. I have just washed in it. What luxury! Within a stone’s throw is a rock out of which gushes seltzer water with iron in solution. According to the natives it cures everything, even the pain that you feel when in the mountains you come across the track of the devil.
 
2. Driving a Cart to Gudaour.
 
Gudaour, 10th August.
I have been feeling very saddle-sore, but to-day my pains are too many and too various to describe. I came over the pass on a cart this day, and was so jolted that I felt in need of internal refitting. I had been lying by 277the roadside at Kobi drinking in the sunshine; it was perfectly blissful. I was determined not to walk to Gudaour; it didn’t matter if I did spend a day in perfect idleness. But at noon I was aware of a vehicle crawling towards me up the road, and I thought I would ask a place in it for my weary bones. It took half an hour to come up, however, for the driver was fast asleep and the horse was going at its own sweet will, i.e., at about a mile an hour. I woke the man. He was an Armenian, a copper-coloured fellow with a black eye. When I got in, he beat the horse furiously with a thick cudgel for about half a verst distance, and then relapsed into sleep. We went at a smart pace and then slowed down. The horse kept looking backward all the time—it had no blinkers—watching its master and the angle of his cudgel. When the Armenian was fast asleep the horse resumed its original speed of one mile an hour. And so, laboriously, we climbed the ten versts to Krestovy, the ridge of the pass. The scenery was extremely beautiful and the air very cold and fresh. At Vladikavkaz I expect there were 90 or 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but here, in the shade, it was near freezing-point. The avalanche snow lay in great quantities below us, bridging the little rivers. Even now and then there was snow on the road. But we were protected from snow slides by covered ways at the most important points. The chief feature of the lan............