It is a common occurrence during these games for a mounted horseman when particularly excited to throw up his cap; and this is always regarded as a challenge by any of his companions, unslinging, uncovering, and cocking his gun, to put a ball through it before it reaches the ground. Or a bonnet is purposely dropped, that some rider going at full speed may display his agility by picking it up without drawing rein. Again, there is the game in which two mounted cavaliers set off at full speed holding each other by the hand, and each endeavoring by main strength or dexterity to pull his antagonist from the saddle. And finally, a party of horsemen on arriving at a friendly aoul or place of general gathering, is met by a company of persons on foot who, bearing branches of trees, make a dash at the horses' heads in order if possible to frighten them. This tests the skill of the riders, and also trains the horses to rush without fear upon the enemy. IX. HIS LOVE OF NATURE. Schamyl in early youth exhibited a remarkable sensibility to the beauty and sublimity of nature. It is related of him by the aged men of Himri that he was fond of climbing the neighboring mountains, and that especially at the going down of the sun he might be seen sitting on a high point of rock whence he could survey at the same time the vale below and the fantastic summits which tower above it. There he would sit gazing at the snows red with the declining rays, and at the rocks glowing in the reflected purple of the clouds, until the valley and the glens connected with it were quite dark with the gathering twilight--gazing where far off to the westward the snow-clad peaks were still burning brightly as with altar fires that reached to heaven--gazing where blazed longest of all the top of Kasbek, until from its expiring spark the evening planet seemed to catch the light with which it flamed out in the sky above it, while gradually the lower mountains faded on the sight, and only the heavens and the highest peaks were bathed in the mild light of night.