IHAD turned aside from the track to climb the side of a wooded hill near the Stolovy Mountain; I had an idea that I might find a sheltered spot among the trees. I had not slept out before, and I feared to be found sleeping by any of the natives. I was not a rich prey for the robber, but in Russia they steal even one’s clothes. There are many stories current in Vladikavkaz which must have a certain amount of foundation in truth. According to a loquacious cabman I listened to in Vladikavkaz, a coach was stopped one day on the Georgian road, twelve miles outside the town. It contained a pleasure party, a number of ladies and gentlemen out to spend the day, and they were all despoiled of their clothing. The robbers covered them with guns and called on them to undress and throw all their possessions in a heap on the road or be shot. And they accordingly returned to the town in Adam’s raiment.

I had one moment of thrills this day. I had just emerged from a wood on to a grassy ridge of the mountain, when I saw a shepherd’s camping-ground guarded by dogs. The dogs saw me at the same moment, and all four came tearing along towards me. They were something between bull-dogs and mastiffs, and I had a good mind to climb a tree at once. But something restrained me; the dogs were perhaps too close; I had a cudgel in my hand, I grasped it firmly and awaited the onslaught. Every dog’s eye was riveted on my stick, and they all slackened speed suddenly and skirmished to bite at my heels or dart under my arm. They failed and slunk off; they were only uncivilised collies after all. I was relieved. Many a man in my position might have fired a revolver and then the owners of the dogs would have declared war. I recalled the words of Freshfield, the mountaineer, concerning such positions: “It is judicious to avoid petty wrangles with Ossetes and to tranquillise their sheep-dogs with ice-axes rather than to dismiss them with firearms.” A shepherd came up to me in a few minutes and began the common series of interrogations—Where do you come from? Where are you going to? Why? What are you—a Russian? I answered him very vaguely that I was going to Dalin-Dalin, a little village near by, on business, and that I was not a Russian. “You ought to be afraid to go in these parts,” said he, “many men get killed; a mate of mine was murdered near here last month.”

I heard him with a little thrill, but did not alter my plans. I found a bush, and just after sunset, when the gnats sang in their mournful choirs, I made my bed. I was soon deep snuggled in my waterproof sleeping-sack—my dear old friend—night sharer of so many vicissitudes and slumbers. A wisp of crÊpe de chine about my head, I feared not the meanest of all foes, the mosquitoes that range two to each hair on the hand. I know what happened as the darkness deepened: the birds slunk to sleep in the bushes, all save the night-jars and the owls that gurgled and hooted among the pines and maples. The dark moths flitted to and fro in the first breathless darkness of the summer night, the large red ants carried off on their backs the dead gnats that had perished at my hands at supper-time. Then the pale full moon arose out of a depth of soft white cloud—passionless, perfect. Still the owls hooted as I fell asleep. The night passed. Morning came and I arose gaily. Nought of what the hillman suggested had come to pass; only once I had started, and that at the touch of the wet snout of an inquisitive hedgehog. I remember now how piggy scuttled off. But two minutes after that I was sleeping again. There had been one other event of the night. About two hours before dawn the rain came softly down. A broad cloud had gently breasted this little mountain upon which I was encamped. It rained steadily and much. I curled myself more completely within my sack and let it rain. In the little moments when I did not sleep I heard the drops falling on the cover above me. Had any wild robber come upon this strange bundle under the bush his woodlore must have told him it was no beast or bird ever seen upon the hills or under the sky. I think he would have crossed himself and passed by.

So passed my first night of my tramp in the mountains, quite a unique night, soft, strange, wonderful. I felt I had begun a new life. I had entered into a new world and come into communion with Nature in a way as yet unknown.

The rain had stopped as the first light came up into the sky. I arose gaily, pleasantly cool and fit after the sleep and the rain. By the faint light I saw the valley below me, and the grand grey rocks on the other side. I looked up to the summit of my own mountain, and as I munched a remainder of dry bread felt all the unspeakable delight of an awakening with the birds after having spent the night with the mountains. But, indeed, I had awakened before the birds, and as yet the mountains slept, the long grey line of bearded warriors, calm, majestic, unmoved, invincible. Nature in reverence lay hushed beneath them, waiting for a signal. I passed carefully over the wet grasses—softly, secretly, as if everywhere children slept.

Clamber, clamber, clamber, up then to the highest point. At last I stood there with the dew on my heels. All the east lay before me, and such a horizon as one can only see when looking from the northern spurs of the Caucasus. The sun had not risen, and from north to south lay an illimitable length of deep blood red, blood without life, red without light—dead, fearful, unfathomable red. I stood as one convicted, as a too-daring one, awe-stricken. From the place where I had slept I had not dreamed of this; no tinge on the morning twilight had suggested what the obstacle of the peak withheld. I felt pale and grey as a morning mist, insubstantial as a shadow. The grasses trembled wet at my feet. Behind me the austere mountains sat unmoved, deep in undisturbed sleep or contemplation. No bird sang, no beast moved, not even the wet trees dripped. All waited for a signal, and I waited. Death was passed—life not come. I was at the gates of the day, but had come early....

I was looking westward when the world awoke, looking at the grey mountains. Suddenly it was as if they blushed. Crimson appeared in a valley and ran and spread along the cliffs and rocks and over chasms, suffusing the whole westward scene. It was the world blushing as the first kiss of the sun awakened it to a new day. And as I turned, there in the west was the hero, raising himself unaided victoriously upward. It was the sun, the hot, glorious one, uprising, glistening, burning out of a sea of scarlet, changing the blood into ruby and firing every raindrop to a diamond. Most glorious it was, seen, as it were, by one alone, and that one myself, upon a peak adding my few feet to its five thousand and taking also that crimson reflection, that rosette or favour accorded those presented at the opening of the day. At how many town pageants had one been a mocker, but here was ritual that stood majestic, imperious in its meaning—only to be revered.

The ceremony was at length over. The day was opened, the freedom of the world had been given, one had but to step down into the gardens laid open to man.

Down the hill and over a moor the way led to the little red-roofed village called Dalin-Dalin. Ten steep downhill miles they were, and every mile waved invitingly. Onward then downward, and with steady steps, for the rain has left everything slippery. Wet it is, wet, and the grasses and fern and scrub are up to the waist, but the sun will dry both these and me, and by noon we shall all be hot and thirsty. Through a long wood the path goes. Last week, when I was in the woods, the ground was golden with cowslips, but the fairies’ pensioners are now all gone. Only the tall tiger lilies look down like modest maidens, and brown-green-fingered ferns hold out little monkey hands. Wet, wet—in the boots the water squirts and squeezes. A hare pauses in front and then bounces off—the long-legged, easy runner. So steep and wet is the path that it is difficult to keep one’s footing, and one has to hold on to the branches to keep balance. Mile after mile the distance gets accomplished, and the wood is passed. Beyond the wood is a valley of nettles, immense docks, waste comfrey, canterbury bells and entwined convolvulus, such a bed of rank vegetable as only the black virgin earth, the mountain mist and hot noonday sun can bring forth. Through that! There is even country ahead and less chance of snakes. Yonder the wild rose blooms and the eglantine and snowy guelder rose. The sun is getting hotter, and half-dazed flies wake to a morrow they had not expected; they buzz stupidly at one’s nose and ears—they have some stale news to impart. It is morning again, they say.

Here is Dalin-Dalin. Just outside the village a dead horse lies on the moor, and the flies fluster about it. Was it killed in some night affray with robbers, I wonder?

The mountains lie peacefully in the sunshine. The birds sing; myriadfold humming and stirring and chirping is in the grass. The rose bushes are daintily apparelled, and tall spurge lifts its yellow face to look at the beauties around. Sleeping in the copse, even in more abundance than yesterday, are next month’s flowers: time and the sun are softly wooing them. A few mallow and lily and rose will have faded away and given place to new revellers, new festivities. The morning sun, warmer every moment, promises for to-morrow, to-morrow week, to-morrow month, the blooming of the poppy and the ripening of the vine.