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And he, with rich unction, offering at the same time his hand 'Mitai ehipe, mitai kaehae; kaoha nui! or, to translate freely: 'The ship is good, the victuals are up to the mark, and we part in friendship. Which testimonial uttered, he set off along the beach with his head bowed and the air of one deeply injured. I saw him go, on my side, with relief.
"Do you, Uncle Mitai, mount the trace horse, while Uncle Minai mounts the shaft horse." Whereupon Uncle Minai a peasant with a pair of broad shoulders, a beard as black as charcoal, and a belly like the huge samovar in which sbiten is brewed for all attending a local market hastened to seat himself upon the shaft horse, which almost sank to the ground beneath his weight.
At length the participatory efforts of the peasants rose to an unprecedented degree of enthusiasm, and they shouted in an intermittent chorus the advice, "Do you, Andrusha, take the head of the trace horse on the right, while Uncle Mitai mounts the shaft horse. Get up, Uncle Mitai."
They were present at the forcing of the Bedmanai Pass on the 29th of September, and on the two following days they were employed in destroying the fortified villages in the Mitai and Suran valleys; but as these operations were unattended by much loss of life, the whole brigade reached Shabkadr with only three casualties.
"Louis has learned a good many words of the language, and with the help of signs can contrive to carry on a conversation, but I have stuck fast with two words: 'ka-oha' which means 'How do you do? 'thank you, and 'good bye, and I am not quite sure how much else, and 'Mitai, meaning good, nice, pretty, kind.
For all that, he was a man of so high a bearing, and so like an uncle of my own who should have gone mad and got tattooed, that I applied to him, when we were both on shore, to know if he were satisfied. 'Mitai ehipe? I asked.
Upon that the lean, long, and red-bearded Uncle Mitai mounted the shaft horse; in which position he looked like a village steeple or the winder which is used to raise water from wells. The coachman whipped up his steeds afresh, but nothing came of it, and Uncle Mitai had proved useless. "Hold on, hold on!" shouted the peasants again.
As we sat under the awning in opposite corners of the cockpit, he braiding hairs from dead men's chins, I forming runes upon a sheet of folio paper, he would nod across to me as one Tahuku to another, or, crossing the cockpit, study for a while my shapeless scrawl and encourage me with a heartfelt 'mitai! good! So might a deaf painter sympathise far off with a musician, as the slave and master of some uncomprehended and yet kindred art.
"NOW they will go all right!" the muzhiks exclaimed. "Lay it on hot, lay it on hot! Give that sorrel horse the whip, and make him squirm like a koramora ." Nevertheless, the affair in no way progressed; wherefore, seeing that flogging was of no use, Uncles Mitai and Minai BOTH mounted the sorrel, while Andrusha seated himself upon the trace horse.
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