CHAPTER XV.. The Rains.

THE RAINS.

Poti--Chasing wild boar--Red-deer--Turks and Cossacks--Sotcha--Lynxes--Game in the Caucasus--A hunting party--A wounded sow--Beautiful scene--An unexpected bag--Our cuisine--The ‘evil eye’--Overtaken by the rains--Our tent inundated--Surrounded by wolves--Cheerless days--A terrible catastrophe--Welcome help--Golovinsky--A wild scene--Eluding the storm--Fording a torrent--A refuge--Scant supplies--Cossack cradle-song--The Cossacks of to-day--Russian plantations--A terrible ride--Struggling for life--Cossack loafers--Ride to Duapsè--Forlorn days--Mad wolves--Wrestling a Tartar--Laid up with fever--Return to England 340

A verst is equal to three-quarters of an English mile.

SPORT IN THE CRIMEA AND THE CAUCASUS.