"Some parts of our own land are desolate enough, but this country where the Ossets lived had scarcely a tree to make the world look living; and having had no war in their neglected places to civilize them with the passage of guns, they seemed to be quite outside all knowledge. Yet to my surprise, they looked down upon our race, which we for generations had been wont to do to them; and with better reason, as all others will admit. We rode very fine Khabarda steeds, which are the best of all the Caucasus, but we were obliged to leave them in the bed of a little snow-river at last, and appear at the entrance on foot, as if we expected to be shot at. "Nobody shot at us, chiefly perhaps because few of them had learned the way to shoot; but there was not one of them who required any lessons in the art of staring. And to think that such people looked down upon us! All their houses had hideous towers, as if their lives were spent in looking out from the tops; and my heart went low, as I thought of my lively and lovely sister Marva, who had been brought up like a French girl almost, extinguished and deadened among such clods. And I had not even the chance of learning how she liked the lot she had cast for herself. Perhaps she may have seen me from some tower--for they have narrow loops instead of windows--but she never showed her face to me, nor sent me any message. "We shouted, and made noise enough to fling all the rocky echoes into a Babel of dispute with one another, and if we could have found the butt end of a tree, we would have made a rush for it and rammed the heavy gate. At last a surly fellow put his head out at a loophole, and rubbed his eyes as if we had broken his repose. I did not understand their language then, though I came to know it afterwards; but some of my men made out this delivery--'Sons of the Evil One, ye shall not rob us. The noble Prince Rakhan is far off; but we will fight until he returns. Ye will be slain by thundering guns, unless ye cease this uproar.' "We could not believe that Osset robber; for the people of the village had told us that the Chief and his bride were both at home; but I tore a leaf out of my order-book, and wrote a letter upon it, and handed it up on the point of a lance. It contained no insolence, though that was rumoured afterwards, but only these words which a man of honesty would have met according to their intention. 'Sûr Imar to Prince Rakhan. If you will come to Karthlos, bringing with you the relics of St. Anthony, and upon them swear that you have had no hand in the death of my dear father, I will deliver to you all the portion of my sister Marva, and add thereto my own present to her, and acknowledge you as a brother.'