ere now. I visited the
_starosta_, and he indicated a home where I might sleep the night. I
was taken in by an aged Greek woman and entertained among her family.
They brought me bread and wine, and spread out the best couch for me.
The sons told me of hunting exploits with the bear and the wild boar;
they told me how at Christmas time the wild turkeys fly overhead in
such numbers that it is the easiest thing in the world to shoot one's
Christmas dinner--and I thought that very convenient. When the sons
were silent, or talking among themselves, the old dame told me about
her youth: how she was only seventeen years old at the time of the
war; how the English were the most handsome of all the soldiers, how
the Turks were the most lazy and the most brutal, how the French and
the Italians simpered; how the English soldiers were loved by the
Greek girls, how they were also more generous than the other troops
and gave freely clothes and tea and sugar and whatever was needed in
the cottages and asked no money for it whatever; how in these days the
little children played with the cannon-balls, rolling them over the
moors and up the village street--all manner of gossip the good old
lady told me, beguiling the hours and my ears till it was bedtime.
Next day I offered to pay at least for my food, but the old lady,
though poor, waved her hand and said, "Oh no, it is for the love of
God!" How often have I had that said to me day after day in Russia,
especially in the North!

Another day in Imeritia, when I passed at evening through a little
Caucasian village and was beginning to wonder where I should have
my supper and find a night's lodging, a Georgian suddenly hailed me
unexpectedly. He was sitting, not in his own house, but at a table
in an inn. There were of course no windows to the inn, and all
the company assembled could easily converse with the horsemen and
pedestrians in the street below. He called out to me and I went up to
him. A place was made for me at the table, and he ordered a chicken
and a bottle of wine. I was just a little doubtful, for I had never
seen the man before and his anticipation of my needs was surprising,
but I accepted his invitation, drank his health, and ate my meal. He
looked at me very pleasantly, and he was more sensible than a Russian,
the sort of person who is marvellously interested in you, but who is
so gentle that he will ask no questions lest you find some pain in
answering him. But I told hi