“After our thirteen nights’ wanderings, we had reached the neighbourhood of the river Arpatschai, but did not rightly know where we were. From the high and barren mountain peaks on which we lay, we beheld, in the far distance, the houses of a large town. We knew not whether it was Russian or Turkish. Without knowledge of the country, without a compass, without intercourse with the inhabitants, whom we anxiously avoided, because we constantly feared discovery and betrayal, we roamed at random in the mountains, ignorant what direction we should take to reach the frontier. Latterly the chase had been unproductive, and we suffered from hunger, as well as from fatigue and severe cold. We saw a herd of wild goats upon the heights, but all our attempts stealthily to approach them were unsuccessful; with extraordinary swiftness they scoured across the fields of snow which covered those lofty mountains, and we lost a whole day in a fruitless pursuit. The sharp mountain air, the toilsome march on foot, increased our hunger. Driven almost to despair, we resolved to run a risk and approach the first village we saw, calling to mind the oath we had taken to defend ourselves to the last drop of our blood, and rather to put each other to death than to fall alive into the hands of the Russians. “On the upper margin of the forest we discovered the minarets of a Tartar mosque. At dusk we cautiously approached and fell in with two Tartars, cutting bushes. From them we learned that we were about thirty versts from the town of Gumri, where the Russians were building a great fort. The frontier was but a short day’s journey distant, and the long blue line which we had seen from the mountain tops was really the river Arpatschai, whose farther bank is Turkish. We did not conceal from the Tartars our condition and design. The state of our uniforms, all torn by the brambles, and our wild hungry aspect, would hardly have allowed us to be taken for Russian soldiers on service, and they had at once recognised us for what we were. Mindful of the advice of the old Tartar at Manglis, we told them it was our firm resolution to become good Mahometans as soon as we got to Turkey. We adjured them, in the name of Allah and the Prophet, to send us provisions from the village, into which they themselves advised us not to venture. According to their account, there was a Cossack post in the neighbourhood, and the banks of the Arpatschai were, they assured us, so strictly watched by Russian piquets, that there was little hope of our getting across the frontier in that direction.