Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/345

Rh porter was never at fault. In the present instance he acquitted himself splendidly; he explained to the shepherds how we had faced many desperate perils together, and behaved in a way almost worthy of true believers, and the price of the lamb, in consequence, was fixed at one rouble, which is I fancy the customary local price amongst the natives—at all events the foreigner usually has to pay from two to three and a half roubles.

Invitations were formally issued to the shepherds and one or two odd natives who had strolled up the valley for a chat. Altogether eight or nine of us squatted in front of the fire and watched the hungry flames licking round the big cauldron in which the larger joints were jumping and kicking as if still possessed of life. The thinner portions, impaled on spits, were skilfully roasted in red cavernous hollows below the great sputtering pine logs. The leaping flames lit up the faces of the bearded followers of the Prophet, while our porter gave them a graphic account of the precipitous cliffs and towering séracs amongst which the strange foreigners seemed to delight in wandering. At length the feast began to be ready. In accordance with some strange law of nature feasts of this description always begin with parts of the interior economy of the victim, the revellers slowly working their way outwards through the ribs and winding up with the larger limbs. The extraction of these latter from the boiling cauldron,