ursday; Djouma, Friday.

A vernal day was fading into evening, and all the inhabitants, attracted
rather by the coolness of the breeze than by any feeling of curiosity,
had quitted their saklas,[12] and assembled in crowds on both sides of
the road. The women, without veils, and with coloured kerchiefs rolled
like turbans round their heads, clad in the long chemise,[13] confined
by the short arkhaloukh, and wide toumans,[14] sat in rows, while
strings of children sported before them. The men, assembled in little
groups, stood, or rested on their knees;[15] others, in twos or threes,
walked slowly round, smoking tobacco in little wooden pipes: a cheerful
buzz arose, and ever and anon resounded the clattering of hoofs, and the
cry "katch, katch!" (make way!) from the horsemen preparing for the
race.

[12] Sakla, a Circassian hut.

[13] A species of garment, resembling a frock-coat with an
upright collar, reaching to the knees, fixed in front by hooks
and eyes, worn by both sexes.

[14] The trowsers of the _women_: those worn by the men, though
alike in form, are called shalwars. It is an offence to tell a
man that he wears the touman; being equivalent to a charge of
effeminacy; and _vice versa_.

[15] It is the ordinary manner of the Asiatics to sit in this
manner in public, or in the presence of a superior.

Nature, in Daghestan, is most lovely in the month of May. Millions of
roses poured their blushes over the crags; their odour was streaming in
the air; the nightingale was not silent in the green twilight of the
wood, almond-trees, all silvered with their flowers, arose like the
cupolas of a pagoda, and resembled, with their lofty branches twined
with leaves, the minarets of some Mussulman mosque. Broad-breasted oaks,
like sturdy old warriors, rose here and there, while poplars and
chenart-trees, assembled in groups and surrounded by underwood, looked
like children ready to wander away to the mountains, to escape the
summer heats. Sportive flocks of sheep--their fleeces speckled with
rose-colour; buffaloes wallowing in the mud of the fountains, or for
hours together lazily butting each other with their horns; here and
there on the mountains noble steeds, which moved (their manes floating
on the breeze) with a haughty trot along the hills--such is the frame
that encloses the picture of every Mussulman village. On this Djouma,
the neighbourhood of Bouinaki was mor