Emerging from the glen, we joined the post road at Anaga, and our impatient horses set off at a gallop. On we sped through the well-kept vineyards of a Russian capitalist, Count Sheremetiev, who threatens to ruin all the poor squires of the district by selling his wines under cost price. At a little village, about half-way between Signakh and Bakurtsikhe, two of us had far outstripped the rest, and were racing neck to neck when my companion's horse cast a shoe; so leaving him at a roadside smithy, I went on alone. The fierce summer sun stood high in the blue arch of heaven; on my left were vine-clad crags; to the right, beyond the river, rose the white peaks of the mountain wall between me and Europe. But I thought not of Europe. I forgot kindred, country, humanity--everything. My horse and I were one, and we were merged in that great, living ocean of life--our mother earth. My pulse beat in harmony with the heart of Nature herself, keeping time with the rippling rills, the whisper of the wandering airs to the leaves of the trembling trees. I had entered a blissful Nirvana, in which all consciousness of self was swallowed up in the world's soul. I had ridden half a mile beyond the point whence I should have ascended by a bridle-path to our host's house, before the cool shade of a cliff aroused me from my state of forgetfulness. It was on the summit of this cliff that my friends had recently met their tenants to discuss some little differences that had arisen between them. Honest folk do not like law-courts--especially Russian law-courts--so the good Kakhetians decided to settle their dispute in the old-fashioned, orthodox manner. A couple of horses were killed, and a good many men on either side were pretty severely hacked and bruised; but the landlords came off victorious. They, nevertheless, agreed to grant certain concessions to the farmers, so all left the field of battle delighted with one another. It is only just to say that this case was an exceptional one. The relations between the gentry and peasantry are excellent; they are on terms of such affectionate familiarity that the latter always address their prince by his pet name.