Walter Harris - From Batum to Baghdad (1896) - Part 1

Walter Burton Harris (1866 – 1933) was British journalist and traveller who achieved fame for his writings on Morocco, where he worked as special correspondent for The Times. Born into a wealthy merchant family, Harris was nineteen years old when he settled in Morocco and spent most of his life exploring North Africa and Middle East and writing a number of well-regarded books and articles based on his travels. In 1895 he travelled from Tangier (Morocco) to Malaga and Marseilles, then sailed across the Mediterranean Sea to Constantinople and spent several days sialing along the Turkish coastline of the Black Sea before reaching Batum. After exploring Western Georgia he visited Tiflis on his way to Tabriz and Baghdad. In 1896 he published his recollections of this trip in his travelogue "From Batum to Baghdad: via Tiflis, Tabriz, and Persian Kurdistan."

The voyage from Trebizond to Batum was perhaps the pleasantest part of our whole journey by sea. The water, calm as the proverbial mill-pond, reflected on its surface the huge peaks of snow that lay to the south and east of us, towering range above range into the blue sky. Certainly the Black Sea had shown us none of its terrors so feared by the mariners of old, for from the moment we entered it on leaving the Bosphorus until we steamed into the harbour of Batum it had presented an almost changeless calm. Nor were any of us sorry, for the Circassie had discharged a large quantity of cargo at Constantinople and at the ports on the north coast of Asia Minor at which we had touched, and she was therefore very light. The least wind would have set her rolling, and even the best of sailors has no fault to find with a steady ship and placid sea.

Away to the north, as we neared Batum, appeared the rosy peaks of the Caucasus, while ahead and to the south rose, almost from the very coast, mountains of forest and rock and snow.

It was still early in the afternoon when Batum came into sight, a white line on the low promontory that juts out into the sea—the alluvial soil carried down by two rivers, the Batum and the Choruk [River]. An hour later we were steaming into the harbour, filled with shipping, and at four o'clock made fast to the shore, stern on to the quay. But the arrival in port of the steamer by no means meant that we could proceed ashore at once, for the Russian police and harbour authorities seldom if ever hurry themselves, and we lay a full hour before there were any signs of either the doctor of the port or the police coming on board. However, at length a boat put off and the officials arrived. One has heard so much of the extreme amount of red-tapeism of the Russians that, without reason perhaps, one always expects difficulties at their custom-houses. Yet, as had been my experience on a former occasion when entering Russian territory, the examination of baggage was a mere formality, and not a single package of mine or even Mohammed's bundle was opened. Our passports were returned to us at once, and within ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after the arrival of the authorities I found myself safely ashore en route through the well-laid-out streets to the Hôtel de France, whose amiable proprietor, M. Charpentier, had been a fellow - passenger on the Circassie from Marseilles. Batum possesses about 19,000 inhabitants, for the most part Russian subjects, though there is a considerable French colony there. The town, which was ceded to Russia after the Russo-Turkish war, was formerly little more than a small Turkish village, but to-day possesses all the attractions of a large commercial place. The streets are wide and often planted with trees, the houses are well built and handsome, and there is all the bustle and stir of prosperity in this city situated at the extremity of the Black Sea. Beyond its political and strategical importance, it owes its prosperity to the large output of mineral oil, which, transferred across Transcaucasia by railway, is here shipped to Europe, India, and China. Batum literally exhales petroleum, and the odour is seldom absent, and when the wind blows from the north-east over the reservoirs in which the oil is stored, the result is by no means pleasant.

We were early at the station, and, thanks to the aid of a guide from the hotel, we found no difficulty in procuring our tickets and registering our luggage. Mohammed, who had never in his life seen a train before, thought the whole station—and the station at Batum is by no means a small one—was going to Tiflis, and accordingly arranged the luggage on one of the seats and made himself comfortable for a long journey in the refreshment-room. It was a great disappointment when he discovered that the bar with all its diversity of cakes and fruit was not going with us.

A strange medley of peoples and races crowded the platform at the departure of the train, and shortly before leaving a very nicely dressed and tidy Chinaman stepped into the carriage in which we had settled ourselves. He spoke English remarkably well, and told me that he was the head man of a number of Chinese coolies who had been brought to the hills around Batum for the purpose of cultivating tea.

Passing first amongst the large oil-reservoirs that line the north-east side of the port, we emerged into charming country. The railway here skirts the sea, which extends away to the left, while on the right rise the mountains. This site has been chosen by the richer inhabitants of Batum as a favourite suburb, and the foothills, amongst which one travels, are dotted with charming summer residences, the greater part built of wood and painted white. But what is more pleasing even than these delightful abodes are the gardens and scenery by which they are surrounded. Every variety of pine and fir seems to flourish in the park-like glades, while on every side huge forest trees, far older than the gardens, are to be seen. In many places the jungle-covered hills have not yet been cleared, and here one can see the dense vegetation that abounds along the warm coast of the Black Sea. Such spots as these consist of jungle as thick as in the tropics, but the trees are acacias, holly, and oak, and many other varieties, while the brushwood is, in spring, a blaze of rhododendrons and yellow azaleas, with the perfume of which latter the air is full. Blackberries, clematis, and bignonia, and many kinds of ivy and other creepers, hang in festoons amongst the branches of the trees, and the whole offers an appearance of impenetrable beauty. So thickly do the forests grow that in many places the trees are so crowded together as never to gain their full proportions. It is amongst hills thus wooded that the merchants of Batum have cleared tracts of land and planted themselves gardens of trees from the tropics and the snow-clad Caucasus— long avenues of pines and firs, beds of palms and azaleas, of New Zealand flax and tulip trees. For this a background of forest-clad mountains tipped with glistening snow, while away to the north the long white line of the Caucasus shows up clearly above the plains and the sea.

From the hills we emerged into the plains of Mingrelia, rich and well cultivated, especially with maize, and dotted with large villages, one and all with their typical sheds raised from the ground on high poles. The construction of every village house is much the same, being built of the trunks of trees in the manner known in America as "log" huts. A few possess more pretensions, being boarded and painted white, but with these exceptions the houses of the villages in the plains much resemble one another. The fertility of this plain of Mingrelia, watered by the river Rion, is easily judged when one sees the numerous patches where the forest has not yet been cleared. On the very edge, it may be, of a well-ploughed maize-field commences a dense and impenetrable jungle of tree and shrub and creepers, with swampy pools purple with irises.

The railway stations are large and well built, and all appear to possess excellent refreshment-stalls, well supplied with food and drinks. But it is on the platform and not within that the centre of attraction for the traveller is to be found, in the strange groups of peasants and others who crowd down, either out of curiosity to see the train and its passengers, or else to sell their wares,—for the stations become, for the few minutes that the trains remain, a centre of busy bargaining between the peasants and the passengers. Pigs, lambs, fowls, turkeys, and geese, and higher in the mountains chestnuts, apples, and bread, are all brought for sale, and a demure and well-dressed young officer in our compartment purchased for some small sum a couple of young sucking pigs, which, safely stored in a sack, travelled with us to Tiflis under the seat.

Harris included this picture in his book
  and entitled it "Types of Georgians."

But even more than in the wares exposed for sale were we interested in the people who thronged the stations. Of all classes they seemed to be, though here the races were fewer than at Batum, and the Georgians of Mingrelia largely predominated. It is true that the extreme beauty of this race has not been overrated, and even from the types that one came across at the various railway stations of a day's journey one could have picked out as fine a body of men as could be found anywhere. There is no savagery in their appearance; on the contrary, if there is any fault to find, it is in their over-refinement of looks. Dressed nearly all in the fine black cherkess—the close-fitting coat with its long loose folds almost like a skirt, which reaches below the knees—with an under coat of black or white silk or cloth, its high collar of the same material, the whole bound at the waist by a silver belt with its dangling plaques and gorgeous dagger, there is a simplicity that shows off to advantage the Georgian type, of dark arched eyebrows, white skins and pink cheeks, and fine cynical mouths. On the head a small cap of loosely curled black astrachan fur is worn, while soft black high boots complete a costume of singular taste and beauty. The bearing of the men is excellent, the head is held high, and in stature they are one and all tall. In fact, a typical young Georgian, with his fine features and simple dress, is as handsome a man as one could ever see.

For some hours we continued over these plains, which gradually narrowed as we proceeded farther up the valley. Both to north and south a long line of snow-peaks bounded the horizon, and swept in majestic curves to the plains, covered with dense forest up to the snow-level, and some to their very summits. Look which way one might, the same beautiful scenery surrounded one.

It was not long before we were amongst the mountains, ascending along the course of the river Rion, through a valley which, as we proceeded, became narrower every minute, until at length our way lay through a veritable gorge, shut in with high forest-clad and rocky precipices, above which appeared the snow, no longer a great distance above us. Below us, now on this side and now on that, leaped the river, roaring as it rushed on its downward course of rapid and fall. By bridges of excellent construction we were continually crossing the river, now skirting the precipice on its right bank, now on its left. The enormous engineering difficulties and the great expense of the making of this line are apparent every moment. A climax of both is reached when for nearly ten minutes' duration the train rattles one through the tunnel of the watershed between the rivers flowing to the Caspian and the Black Sea. This tunnel took four years to excavate (1886-1890), and some 2000 workmen were employed in its construction. One emerges into the valley of the Kur [Kura/Mtkvari], the river on which Tiflis is situated. High mountains enclose the valley on every side except to the east, where it stretches away, widening as it proceeds, until it becomes a veritable plain. The country had completely changed during our passage through the tunnel, for in the place of the high precipices and mountain villages of wooden huts, and the forest-clad mountains, one was passing over well-cultivated level ground dotted with little townships, and amongst herds of cattle and sheep.

Darkness came on and rain fell in heavy drops, until at ten o'clock the guard woke us from slumber by telling us Tiflis was in sight. From the window of my carriage I could see its thousands of lamps sparkling in the wide valley, and half an hour later we were rattling over the badly paved roads of the town en route to the Hôtel de Londres.