With their "larkishness" goes also a boy's touchiness and sensitiveness to a slight. The writer once went down through the district of Tkhuma, having as companion one of the chiefs of the canton, whose guest he naturally was when passing the man's village. A few weeks later he returned; to be met at the border of the district by another chief, one Yalda, of almost equal influence with his previous host. "It is my hope that you are going to stay with me this time Rabbi." As the answer was not given immediately, the gentleman proceeded to explain the necessity of the case. "You see, you stayed with Giwergis when you were here before; and that was all right, as you came down with him. This time though, you ought to come to me. If you do I shall be very glad to see you; but if you don't--well I fear that the only thing for me is to shoot you!" The invitation was accepted, and no more pleasant host could any man have had. A sad scandal is related of a certain apostle of teetotalism who found himself in a mountain village on the day of a wedding feast. He was cordially invited to stop and share in the feasting and dancing; and did so--to reprove excesses and see that decorum was preserved. In due course the governor of the feast invited him to take wine with him, and this the total abstainer a little too curtly declined. The mountaineer bristled up immediately. Such a refusal was a downright insult. And literally at the pistol's mouth the poor guest had to gulp the draught down. Nor was that the end of his woes. The other guests were all ripe for frolic; and all that afternoon the unhappy man was haunted by a procession of rollicking caterans, each equipped with a practicable rifle and a large goblet of wine. Of course there was no refusing such very insistent hospitality; and over the inevitable _dénouement_ we feel ourselves constrained to draw a veil. The fact is though, that boys with guns in their hands can be dangerous, when their feelings are hurt, or when for any reason they are frightened; and then they may turn against their best friends. Only once in his twenty-five years of residence did Dr. Browne find these mountaineers turn really nasty with him, and on that occasion, the men concerned were our good friends of Tkhuma; though the blame did not really rest on them.