How to be careful from dogs???

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By Gurdjeiff

During our journey, we had thousands of adventures which I will not

describe, but there is one that I cannot pass by in silence. Although it

happened so many years ago, I still cannot recall this incident without

laughing, and without at the same time re-experiencing the sensation I

had then—of instinctive fear combined with a presentiment of imminent

catastrophe.



Many times after this incident I found myself in very critical

situations. For example, more than once I was surrounded by scores of

dangerous enemies; I have had to cross the path of a Turkestan tiger;

and several times I was taken literally at the point of a gun; but never

did I have such a feeling as I experienced on this occasion, however

comical it may seem now, after the event.



Pogossian and I were calmly walking along. He was humming some

march and swinging his stick. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a dog

appeared, then another, and another, and still another—in all about

fifteen sheep-dogs, who began barking at us. Pogossian imprudently

flung a stone at them and they immediately sprang at us.



They were Kurd sheep-dogs, very vicious, and in another moment

they would have torn us to pieces if I had not instinctively pulled

Pogossian down and made him sit beside me on the road. Just because

we sat down the dogs stopped barking and springing at us; surrounding

us, they also sat down.



Some time passed before we came to ourselves; and when we were

able to take stock of the situation we burst out laughing. As long as we

remained sitting the dogs also sat, peaceably and still, and when we

threw them bread from our knapsacks, they ate it with great pleasure,

some of them even wagging their tails in gratitude. But when, reassured

by their friendliness, we tried to stand up, then, 'Oh no, you don't!'—for

they instantly jumped up and, baring their teeth, made ready to spring at

us; so we were compelled to sit down once more. When we again tried

to get up, the dogs showed themselves so viciously hostile that we did not risk

trying a third time.



In this situation we remained sitting for about three hours. I do not

know how much longer we would have had to sit there if a young Kurd

girl had not chanced to appear in the distance with an ass, gathering

keesiak in the fields.



Making various signs to her, we finally managed to attract her

attention, and when she came closer and saw what the trouble was, she

went off to fetch the shepherds to whom the dogs belonged, who were

not far away behind a hill. The shepherds came and called off the dogs,

but only when they were at some distance did we risk standing up; and

all the time they were moving away the rascals kept an eye on us.



As it turned out, we had been most naive in assuming that after

crossing the river Arax we would have left the greatest difficulties and

troubles behind us; as a matter of fact, it was only there that they began.



The greatest difficulty was that after crossing this frontier river and

going over Mount Egri Dagh, we could no longer pass for Aisors, as we

had until the encounter with the dogs, because we now found ourselves

in places populated by genuine Aisors. To travel as Armenians, in

regions where at that time they were being persecuted by all the other

races, was quite out of the question. It was also dangerous to go as

Turks or Persians. It would have been preferable to pass ourselves off as

Russians or Jews, but neither Pogossian's appearance nor mine would

permit this.







(from meeting with remarkable man)