One of such horsemen was Hadji Ali. A man who was brave (it is hard to find a coward here), strong and worthy. He had already been in many battles, although he was 23 years old. He was tall, broad-shouldered and muscular, with chestnut hair and green eyes. His face had rough features. Adats and traditions were above any laws for him. He did not tolerate weakness and despised cowards. He was almost always serious and a little gloomy, it was hard to make him laugh. However, he also had a weakness - he really liked one girl from the village - Meseda. He was in love with her and really wanted to marry her. He had already sent matchmakers to her house four times and all four times he was refused. The girl's parents were not against their marriage, but the girl herself did not want it. She did not love him and this squeezed his heart. He believed that love would come during marriage (in the Caucasus, this was usually the case, girls were given in marriage to those they did not know and later in marriage they fell in love with their husbands). According to Caucasian adats, unmarried men and women could not talk to each other. This was considered shameful. However, he courted her for about three years - he constantly sent her gifts through her parents, danced lezginka with her at weddings and other events, and every dance he hoped that she would look at him (a girl had no right to look at a man during a dance, if she looked, it meant that she liked him and she was not against marrying him), but not once did she cast her gaze at him. He even left his dagger at their house (this meant a direct proposal of marriage. If a man left a dagger at a girl’s house, it meant that he had chosen her and was ready to give his life for her. They didn’t leave just any dagger for a girl. But it was all in vain. she did not feed him any sympathy and refused to marry and that caused him pain, which he did not show to anyone, but kept deep in his heart