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TRAVEL AND MOUNTAINEERING IN SUANETIA 251
had l)een first fixed in the ground, and cross-beams nailed to them
to support walls and a roof. On this simple framework boughs
were being dexterously woven by a crowd of camp-followers.
Bright Persian rugs and saddlebags were spread on the ground
and cave colour to the scene. In settled weather life in such an
arbour must be agreeable, and even on a rainy day the owner of
many hoii7-l-as can defend himself from a perpetual dripping.
What
success the Princes met with in the object of their travels, the
search for gold, I never learnt.
Four hours after leaving the top of Gulba I pushed open the
door of the coui'thouse at Betsho, and discovered my companion
sedulously immersed in those tiresome occupations which are the
price the mountain photographer pays for his successes.
Two years later, in 1889, I again found myself in Suanetia, this
time with my friend Captain Powell, as the guests of Prince Atar
Dadish Kilian, the representative of the old princely family who
were once the rulers of Lower Suanetia and still hold the document
by which the Tsar Nicholas confirmed them in their rights
as feudal
lords of the country. Ezeri, the Prince's residence, consists of a
number of detached towered hamlets, spread
over a broad shelf of
sloping meadow-land some 6000 feet above the sea, and only a few
miles west of Betsho. The situation is pleasant and picturesque.
Beyond the Ingur
the snows and forests of the Laila are all in
sis:ht ; Ushba shows its enoi'mous tusks over the low hill behind
the villages ; down the valley there is a fine view towards the
gorge of the Ingur.
The Prince, now a man in the prime of life, was educated at
Odessa, and then sent to travel on government business in Japan and
Manchuria. He speaks French, and is an educated gentleman.
None the less he plays the part of a native noble in the mountain
home to which he has been allowed to return. He lives like a
feudal chief in the Middle Ages, surrounded by retainers, and
receives his rents in services and in kind. He keeps more or less
open house to guests. From the old home of his family he sends
out his messengers to Ossetia to buy horses, to Sugdidi for
provisions,
to Kutais for household necessaries. He has extensive