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SUAXETIA 225
that he could only approve the choice of the people, as it was quite impossible
for him to make judicious appointments, seeing that every man
was a perfect stranger to him. Some dissatisfaction was shown at this
reply, but after a time the crowd moved away, and almost immediately
hurried back, pushing to the front one of their number who was doing
his best to resist. The favourite refused to be the " elder "
place, because his three years' term as "rural judge" had just expired
and he desired to be released from further responsibility, and because he
thought no greater misfortune could visit him than that of becoming
mamasaliysy. "I killed a man in the next village to this ten years ago;
I have paid his relations the full amount of blood-money, but they are
not satisfied, and I believe that they are seeking an opportmiity for revenge ;
if I am made mamasaJdysy I know what I will do— I will kill another of
the familj-, the man who wants to kill me.
"
This was the explanation
offered ; but the Chief told him that if he persisted in making such a
statement he should arrest him, and have him tried for murder; on the
other plea, however, that of having alrcad}^ served as judge, he was entitled
to decline the new honour, and a fresh election must take place. The
determniation of the people was not, however, to be altered, for they
clamoured in favour of the late judge, and vox jmjndi being vox Dei, he
was prevailed upon to accept the oflice.'
The occasional dangers and annoyances incident to a district-
officer's post in the Caucasian Alsatia may be estimated fi'om
the following further extract from Captain Telfer's narrative :
'The "elder" and the priest made their official report, which was to
the effect that an old feud between the villages of Zaldash and Mujal
had resulted in the violent death, the previous January, of a son of Kaz-
boulatt Shervashidze, the mamasaJdysy of Mujal, and as the people of
Mujal muster stronger than they of Zaldash, the allies of the deceased
man's family had kept the assassin and his friends besieged in their tower
since the commission of the crime, for which blood-money had never been
paid. The Chief was inclined to the belief, from the evidence at hand,
that the murder had not been premeditated, and that one man slew the
other in self-defence; he accordingly despatched a messenger to Zaldash,
to tell the accused and his two brothers that they were to leave the tower
and come to him forthwith. A first and a second summons remaining
disregarded, the Chief himself rode off to Zaldash, accompanied by his
interpreter, the priest, and a Cossack, and ordered the trio to descend,
VOL. I. P
; in the first