behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses
mingling confusedly ... and the mountains! Beyond the Terek rises
the smoke from a Tartar village... and the mountains! The sun has
risen and glitters on the Terek, now visible beyond the reeds ...
and the mountains! From the village comes a Tartar wagon, and
women, beautiful young women, pass by... and the mountains!
'Abreks canter about the plain, and here am I driving along and do
not fear them! I have a gun, and strength, and youth... and the
mountains!'




Chapter IV


That whole part of the Terek line (about fifty miles) along which
lie the villages of the Grebensk Cossacks is uniform in character
both as to country and inhabitants. The Terek, which separates the
Cossacks from the mountaineers, still flows turbid and rapid
though already broad and smooth, always depositing greyish sand on
its low reedy right bank and washing away the steep, though not
high, left bank, with its roots of century-old oaks, its rotting
plane trees, and young brushwood. On the right bank lie the
villages of pro-Russian, though still somewhat restless, Tartars.
Along the left bank, back half a mile from the river and standing
five or six miles apart from one another, are Cossack villages. In
olden times most of these villages were situated on the banks of
the river; but the Terek, shifting northward from the mountains
year by year, washed away those banks, and now there remain only