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XIi 
"MIDSUMMER NIGHT AMONG THE TENT- 
DWELLERS" 
I WALKED forth from Kopal on a broad moorland road, 
and after several hours' upland tramping came to the 
Cossack village of Arazan - a typical willow-shaded 
settlement with irrigation streamlets rushing along 
the channels between the roadway and the cottages. 
Here, at the house of a herculean old soldier, I was 
offered for dinner a dish of hot milk, ten lightly boiled 
eggs, and a hunch of black bread -the typical meal 
of the day for a wanderer in these parts. In the pleas- 
ant coolness of five o'clock sunshine I passed out at 
the other end of the only street of the village and 
climbed up into the hills beyond. I turned a neck in 
the mountains, descended by little green gorges into 
strange valleys, and climbed out of them to high ridges 
and cold, wind-swept heights. All about me grew 
desolate and rugged. It was touching to look back at 
the little collection of homes that I had left - the com- 
pact little island of trees in the ocean of moorland 
below me and behind me - and look forward to the 
pass where all seemed dreadful and forbidding in front.