Another day in Imeritia, when I passed at evening through a little Caucasian village and was beginning to wonder where I should have my supper and find a night’s lodging, a Georgian suddenly hailed me unexpectedly.  He was sitting, not in his own house, but at a table in an inn.  There were of course no windows to the inn, and all the company assembled could easily converse with the horsemen and pedestrians in the street below.  He called out to me and I went up to him.  A place was made for me at the table, and he ordered a chicken and a bottle of wine.  I was just a little doubtful, for I had never seen the man before and his anticipation of my needs was surprising, but I accepted his invitation, drank his health, and ate my meal.  He looked at me very pleasantly, and he was more sensible than a Russian, the sort of person who is marvellously interested in you, but who is so gentle that he will ask no questions lest you find some pain in answering him.  But I told him about myself.  After the meal he took me along to his house and gave me a spare bed.  All was very disorderly and he apologised, saying, “It is untidy, but I am a bachelor.  What is a bachelor to do?  If I were married all would be different.”  I spent a whole day with him, and in that short space he conceived for me as it seemed an eternal friendship.

“You are very good,” I said at parting.  “You have been very hospitable.  I don’t know how to thank you....”  He stopped my words.  “No, no,” he said, “it is only natural; it is no doubt what any one would do for me in your country were I a stranger there.”

“Would they?” I thought.

By the way, a curious example of inhospitality showed itself in this village where I met the Georgian.  We were sitting round a pitcher of sweet rose-coloured wine, and one of us signalled to a rather morose Akhbasian prince who was passing, but he took no notice.  “He will not drink wine with us,” said my friend.  “His wife is so beautiful.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“His wife is very beautiful and he is as jealous of her as she is beautiful.  He is like a dog who growls when he has suddenly got something very good in his mouth:  he fears any familiarity on the part of other dogs.”

As a tramp I have often felt how little I had to give materially for all the kindness I have received.  But even such as myself have their opportunities of reciprocity, though they are of a humble kind.  I call to mind a cold, wet day near Batoum, how I had a big bonfire by a stream under a bridge and I warmed myself, cooked food, and took shelter from the rain.  A Caucasian man and woman, both tramps, came and sat by my fire a long while.  The man took from his breast some green tobacco leaves, dried them by the fire, and put them in his pipe and smoked them.  They spoke a language quite unintelligible to me and knew not a word of Russian.  But they were nevertheless extremely demonstrative and told me all manner of things by signs and gestures.  Very poor, even starving, and I gave them some bread and beef and some hot rice pudding from my pot.  In return the man gave me five and a half walnuts!  We seemed like children playing at being tramps, but I felt a very lively affection for these strange wanderers who had come so trustingly to my little home under the bridge.