John Johnson, A Journey from India to England, Through Persia, Georgia, Russia, Poland (1817)

In 1817, John Johnson, a lieutenant colonel in the British East India Company, decided to return from India to Britain and undertook a lengthy overland journey across Iran, Georgia, south Russia, Poland and Germany. During his long travel, Johnson maintain a journal which he published shortly after returning to London in 1818. Below is an excerpt describing Johnson's brief sojourn in Tiflis.

Our next journey was to Sholavera [Shulaveri], distant thirty-four miles. We departed at day-break, accompanied by the Cossack officer; and after passing through the village, and a cultivated plain beyond it for about three quarters of a mile, we began to descend along the side of a mass of perpendicular basalt by a road constructed of stone. We of course dismounted and led our horses, proceeding in this manner for a mile, with the river before mentioned on our right. About half a mile farther we crossed a rivulet by a bridge, and afterwards ascended a high mountain. At the sixth mile we crossed the river by a bridge of Armenian structure, and then continued along its right bank to sixteen miles; here we forded it with some difficulty, as the stream was deep, rapid, and one hundred and fifty yards in breadth. We ascended an eminence, and at eighteen miles arrived at the post of Cheechkaun [?] in an elevated situation. 

There were silver mines about six wersts distant, which were worked by contract and were not found very productive. Mines of lead have also been opened in this district. The country is covered with wood, and among the trees are those of the wild walnut, the hazelnut, plums, cherries, and pears. On this march I had an opportunity of observing the great difference in form between the hills of granite and those of basalt. The first were almost in every instance conical and acuminated; the others consisted of horizontal strata in steps or terraces, with sides nearly perpendicular. It has been already stated, that at Oozunlar one side of the chasm of the river was perpendicular and of basalt, and that the other which sloped to the water's edge was of granite: this slope was covered with verdure. Over these heights it was impossible to travel at a quicker rate than three miles an hour. At six miles farther the hills terminated, and the road became much better. Near this post we found superior accommodations at a large village, which had a bazar where articles of provision were to be had in great plenty of good quality.

In Armenian villages, the houses are built with their floors two or three feet below the level of the street, with roofs of earth either flat or rounded; and as they are open on one side, it is the custom to keep a number of fierce watch-dogs, whose barkings do not tend much to soothe the repose of persons who are not accustomed to them.

The carts of this country are of a peculiar construction. They are about twelve feet long, broad behind, and narrowing to a point in front. They have wooden wheels about four feet in diameter, without iron tires; the spokes and naves are large, and the axle-tree, which is of wood, is made fast to the wheel and turns with it. The naves are girt with wooden hoops.

The vessels of earthen-ware still used by these people, and borne on the shoulder by many of the women, are of very elegant design, and resemble those antique specimens which are from time to time dug up from ruins. The substance of the ware is white, and of a very good kind.

The men and the women when grown up, or after twenty years of age, become coarse-featured, and their skins are much shrivelled. The necks of the women are thin, like those of the Hottentots; they paint their faces red and white, and puncture their skins in various figures; but their children, to the age of seventeen or eighteen, are beautiful to a great degree, and have a fine bloom on their cheeks. The shepherds who tend their flocks on the wilds carry their draught-water in wooden flasks on their backs.

As the Cossacks are not accustomed to travel by night themselves, they cannot be depended upon when they undertake to wake a traveller at an appointed hour. We tried them several times and they failed us. If left to themselves they never brought the horses until broad day-light in the morning.

July 9th [1817]. Teflis, the object of our next march, was distant thirty-seven miles. We proceeded eighteen miles and a half to Kodi, which we reached in four hours; and as there was only a non-commissioned officer at this station, we found very little accommodation, and breakfasted in a garden. We again set out, and within about half a mile from this post we descended to a natural basin or lake that appeared to be of salt, having water only at one end. It was entirely encompassed and shut in by hills, and was in length eight miles, and in breadth four. After crossing it we ascended uncultivated heights destitute of trees, and at nine miles further came to the post of Soganlook, close to the river Koor [Kura/Mtkvari]. This place has no accommodation for travellers. The road led hence along the right bank of the Koor, and between it and some high hills to Teflis. About one mile from that town we were detained for forty minutes at a quarantine station. The distance from Soganlook to Teflis we found to be eight miles and a half; the road throughout this short march proved to be uncommonly good.

Passing through the town we were met by the servant of the principal Armenian resident, who conducted us to the house of his master, at which, by invitation, we put up. He was the son of Arratoon Issaya Khaun, a man particularly well disposed toward the English, to whom we had letters, and who, we were shocked to learn, had been recently killed by lightning. 

The house was excellent, and was situated in the quarter inhabited by the General and the Governor, being near both their residences. As we were now in the capital of Georgia, we sent our letters to General Koutousoff [Kutuzov], who received us most politely next morning, and gave us an invitation to dine with him, which we accepted. It is gratifying to add, that from respect to us simply as British officers, he showed us every possible attention; and began immediately by enquiring our wishes, which he promptly assisted us to realize. Indeed I have very rarely experienced such disinterested urbanity, and so evidently proceeding from a sincere wish to be of service to us as Englishmen. Every day during our halt at Teflis, he gave us some fresh mark of his goodness of heart, and of his obliging disposition. In the evening, on this first introduction, the General, imagining that we were not sufficiently well accommodated with our Armenian host, offered us a house which was then fitting up for himself, which he very kindly took us with him to view, and walked with us through the bazars, and through the best part of the town, pointing out every thing worthy of our notice. We could not, however, accept this hospitable offer of a house, from respect to our Armenian host, who had ever shown himself favourable to Englishmen, and testified a particular solicitude for our welfare.

July 11th. We were again invited to dinner by General Koutousoff, who told us he expected we should consider ourselves as his guests. In the evening we visited the Governor, who was just then returned from the country. At six we went to pass the remainder of the evening at the house of Prince Baiboodoff [Bebutashvili/Bebutov], a Georgian Prince, where we saw his family of ladies, and were entertained with observing a variety of dances peculiar to the different tribes inhabiting the region of the Caucasus. Some of these dances were performed by Georgian young men; and among them there were two ladies, who, to a slower measure, executed a sort of formal stately movement of no interest. These exercises were performed by the ladies and gentlemen merely at General Koutousoff's request, in order to show us the Georgian style of dancing.

The dress of the ladies was unbecoming to a very great degree; it was much in the style of our very oldest fashions, exhibiting long waists and flat chests; and in fact displaying none of the contour of the female form, except by a kind of narrow shawl tied round the loins. Their countenances were much disfigured by the formally arched eye-brows, and their head-dresses were utterly ungraceful, being somewhat in the shape of an inverted bowl or mortar, a mere truncated cone. Their raiment was of silk, and their slippers, with high heels, were painted green and blue. In the deportment of these ladies there was altogether an extreme coldness, amounting to more than mere reserve, purposely assumed no doubt for the occasion, which they thought would not allow of any degree of ease and freedom of manner; nor was it unlikely that they would rejoice to divest themselves of so much formal restraint. This adherence to Moorish customs is to be expected among the inhabitants of a country so long under the yoke of the Mahomedans.

Four or five men with musical instruments of a construction resembling the guitar or violin, and with a double drum, played for the dancers, and sung at the intervals when the dancing was suspended. All the bystanders clapped their hands in accord with the movement, and seemed entirely to relish the music. Drams and wine were freely drank by the whole company, and a long table loaded with fruits and sweetmeats, was brought in for the refreshment of the guests. The General and all the principal officers of Teflis, were invited to this Georgian route, which, from the display it gave of the costume and manners of the country, was to me a very novel and interesting spectacle. Respecting the beauty of the Georgian women, which oriental fabulists and poets, as well as their imitators, by common consent extol, I had been led to form a less exaggerated notion; and therefore was not much disappointed on finding that those we saw had no pretensions to it at all.

A perpetual bar to our enjoyments was the anxiety which we felt to prosecute our journey with as little delay as possible, and which here urged us to take advantage of the post which was to leave Teflis on Sunday the 13th. As the post is always dispatched under a strong guard of Cossacks, our wish was to avail ourselves of their protection, and thus avoid giving the trouble of furnishing us with a separate guard. We had also some hopes of overtaking Mr. Stracheyr who having quitted us at Kara Klissia, arrived at Teflis a few days before us, obtained his passports, and two days afterwards, being provided with a separate escort, departed for Mosdok. 

In order to make the necessary arrangements, we took the intervening day, the 12th, to ourselves, applied for our passports, and got as many of our ducats changed into paper-money as would be necessary to carry us through Russia. The ducat was here worth twelve roubles, while in other parts of the empire, where paper is more in demand, it is said to obtain no more than ten roubles sixty copecks. In order to be entirely at our ease we dined at the tavern, where we had an excellent repast in the French style, for two roubles two copecks (or about five shillings) a head, including jellies, fruit, and two bottles of wine.

Being led to expect better accommodations at the Russian posts than we had found in travelling through Persia, we determined to disencumber ourselves of beds and every other article of baggage not absolutely requisite on the road, and therefore gave them as a perquisite to our servants. We procured cases to be made for the carriage of our trunks on the horse-saddles of the Cossacks; took out certificates of health for ourselves, and passes for the return of our servants to Persia. We also laid in a small supply of sugar, tea, and other provisions for the ensuing journey.

It is here necessary to remark, that as in Persia the severity of the preceding winter was indicated by deeper snow than had been known for many years, so in Georgia and on the Caucasus, from the same cause, the meltings of the snows had swollen the rivers to a greater height than they had reached within the last forty years. We were informed that many gentlemen had come thus far in carriages, and we were very desirous to purchase one for ourselves, as we had now travelled on horseback with the same horses nearly two thousand miles. Several carriages of different constructions were offered to us, and we had agreed for an excellent barouche, bought at Petersburg, and now in good condition, for two thousand roubles, when intelligence was brought that one half of the stone bridge over the Terek at Vladi Kaukass [Vladikavkaz] was carried away by the torrent, which had likewise so broken up and destroyed the roads, as to render traveling in carriage at that time impracticable; and as the necessary repairs upon them would require two or three months to complete them, we determined to continue our route on horseback. We considered this the more expedient, as it would tend to our greater security against the Ossetian banditti, who committed depredations on the road through the region of the Caucasus.

The town of Teflis has been undergoing many improvements, which commenced under the government of General Yermolof and are ably continued under his worthy successor, General Koutousoff, who on all occasions exerts his influence for perfecting the streets, introducing regulations respecting the fronts of houses, and the erection of new buildings. The site is very favourable, being on the side of a large hill, and having the river Koor on the lowest part. The general direction of the streets is N. W. and S. E. Its celebrated hot springs produce a stream which runs through one side of the town, and there supplies several baths erected in the Georgian style. The water, after flowing from them, is used by almost all descriptions of people for washing their persons and their clothes. The hot stream is allowed to pass continually through the baths, and therefore there is a constant supply of tepid water. We went early in the morning to these baths, and found them very delightful; the water however is sulphuric, and in smell resembles that of Cheltenham. It was lamentable to observe that the buildings of the baths were in a state of neglect and decay. The windows had been broken, which admitted fresh air, and this is inconvenient to bathers as it occasions them to cool too soon. The principal cistern of the waters is below the level of the floor; the bather descends into it, and after staying a short time, he quits it, and is rubbed down by the attendants in the manner practised at Tehraun [Tehran], in Persia. He then enters another rather cooler bath, and at last returns to that which he began with. The water, each time a person enters, feels at first rather hotter than the body can agreeably bear.

In the summer season the town of Teflis is very hot; the water for drinking is neither clear nor very good tasted; it is procured from the river Koor, and is doubtless impregnated by the mineral springs which fall into it above the town ; and of these it is said there are many.

On the opposite bank of the river are the suburbs, consisting of the houses of the poorer sort of Mahomedans or Tartars. They are connected with the town by a wooden bridge, at a very considerable height over the river.

The great attention which is now paid to the improvement ofGeorgia will no doubt add many articles of manufacture to its exports; among others those of glass and leather are in contemplation. At present it furnishes wines in abundance, embroidery, steel arms and armour, horse furniture; and it is particularly noted for fine furs, of which I believe the black fur forms one, and for yapoonchees, a species of cloaks of black felt, with an external nap of long black hair; these sell, according to the fineness of their texture and finish, from five to ten roubles each.

As Georgia affords abundance of copper from the many mines now working, it is the intention of the government to encourage the manufacture of copper ware at Teflis, as an article of commerce. In fact, so large is the quantity of copper now on hand that they are casting statues with it, under the superintendence of an Italian artist, of considerable merit, who receives a salary from the government. I believe they have also begun to cast small field-pieces.

I remarked in these districts a breed of goats, bearing a long silky fleece, and having nearly the same characteristics with the goats of Kermaun, and, I believe, the same with those of Cashmere. As the climate and pastures of the mountains of Caucasus will no doubt be found congenial to these animals, the woollen manufacture will of course be an object deserving the care and cultivation of this wise and attentive government. Coarse woollens are manufactured even at present, so that the fabric is already introduced, and needs only to be perfected as to quality and texture.

The views of Russia, with regard to this country, seem to tend towards establishing it as an entrepot for European commodities; as a mart for the produce of the surrounding countries, and in particular for the supply of Persia and Turkey. To prepare for realizing these views, men of abilities have been employed in traversing the country, and in ascertaining the most eligible lines of communication between Georgia and the Black Sea on one side, and the Caspian on the other, availing themselves, as far as may be practicable, of the course of the rivers.

The grand obstacles to the speedy success of these schemes of improvement appear to be the local situation and the present lawless manners of the different tribes of inhabitants. Possessing as they do a region bordering on Turkey and Persia, and backed by the mountains of the Caucasus, they are likely to remain long unsubdued, particularly as they are surrounded by the Khords, Lesguays, Circassians, and other tribes who are as free, lawless, and warlike as their ancestors in the time of the Romans, twenty centuries ago.

The first effort of Russia may perhaps be to obtain possession of as much of Persia and Turkey as will cause their boundaries to recede, in consequence of the appropriation of an intermediate tract of country. The next step may be that of ensuring a preponderance of a population of Christians of the Greek church, that is of Armenians and Georgians, from both countries, Persia and Turkey. If in doing this the Russians establish free seminaries for instruction, they may in time succeed in inducing the Circassians to send their youth thither to be instructed in reading and writing, and thus be rendered Christians and friends, instead of Mahomedans and inveterate enemies.

The Georgian roads are now much exposed to the predatory irruptions of the Lesguays, a hardy tribe, who as they scorn the refinements and luxuries of domestic life, and disdain the questionable enjoyments of wine and liquors, are unfettered by the influence of those seductions which operate so powerfully on other children of nature.

To the credit, and no doubt also tending to the internal peace and unanimity of the Russian government, several Georgian officers of distinction are promoted to the rank of general officers in the Russian service, and employed in commands and situations of trust in that empire. There are actually several young boys, the children of the principal families of the Caucassian tribes, now living under the protection of the officer commanding at Teflis, who employs them about his person as subalterns in order to attach them to him. The career of preferment is fully open to them, and they may aspire to the highest commands with the same degree of hope as if they were Russians by birth and descent.

It has been already intimated, that the paper money of Russia is to be bought here on rather favourable terms; and here therefore the traveller ought to provide himself with a sufficiency for his journey to the opposite frontier. We received for each ducat after the rate of three roubles of silver or twelve of paper; or rather 26 silver roubles were worth 100 roubles in assignats. But it must be remembered that Georgia requires money of Persia, and therefore bills on that country are always acceptable, and somewhat advantageous. Persia in like manner requires cash in India, and of course Indian bills sell generally to advantage in Persia. In the latter country the Venetian ducat passes for six reals or Persian rupees, whereas that coin may be frequently bought in the Indian markets on much lower terms, generally at about 4 J Bombay rupees.

On entering Georgia, a passport is required from the British resident in Persia: at Teflis this document is examined, and another is given to the traveller in Russian; if he be desirous that his clothes or valuable effects should not be fumigated at the quarantines, it will be necessary for him to have them examined at the nearest principal town or here, and then sealed. A padrojna, or road-pass and order for posthorses, is also to be taken up here, for all that part of the route which extends through the Russian dominions. That which we procured was to serve from Mosdok to Lemberg, for which payment was made at once, at the rate of 2 copecks (paper money) per werst, for each horse. For 1902 wersts, we paid 152 roubles, 20 copecks.

Clive Phillipps-Wolley - Savage Svanetia (1882) - Part 2

Clive Phillipps-Wolley was a Canadian/British writer, traveller and avid hunter (for more biographical details see Part 1) who, in the summer of 1882, travelled across Europe to Odessa where he got on a steamer to cross the Black Sea. By August he was already in Kutaisi, where he was invited to join a Georgian prince's shooting party. But before they could go the Canadian and his friend were invited to a Georgian dinner party that lasted late into the night...

Kutais is not a lively place even for the Caucasus, and seen by eyes that no heavy supper overnight has made captious and hard to please in the morning. To us, then, on the morning after the supper of princes, to us who had endured nearly a week by rail and another by sea, to escape from the trammels of civilised life and revel in wild sport, it seemed so unendurably dull that, in spite of a heavy damp heat reminding one of the interior of a Turkish bath, we set to work with a will to get horses and prepare for a start for Svanetia before dusk.

I was up at six, and by seven had managed to rouse a waiter and send him into the bazaar to make inquiries for horses to take us as far as Oni. By ten a very magnificent Jew, in a shiny peaked cap and diamond studs, came to see us. A glance at him sufficed. He was not the man I wanted, but a rascal who, owning no horses himself, offers to supply them to the unwary at twice the bazaar tariff. If a stranger to Kutais closes with him, he of course sublets his job to a regular horseboy and himself pockets half the money. He very soon found his way down stairs, and unfortunately was so much annoyed at not having been able to do the Englishman, that he went straight off to the assemblage of horseboys, and I believe told them of my imperative need of horses at once, and advised them to put the screw on accordingly. However that may be, it was not till late that I managed to find a man who would undertake to bring me four horses on the morrow, and having stipulated that the horses should be ready at the hotel by six, I reconciled myself to this further delay and ordered dinner, feeling limp and hoarse with the trials of voice and temper to which I had been subjected.

Dinner over, Frank and I set to work to prepare cartridges and pack up what few things we meant to take with us on our journey, which done we turned in ready for an early start on the morrow. But with morning came no horses nor any message from their owner. A protracted search resulted in his appearance about lunch time to say that he had changed his mind, and could not undertake the job for less than double the sum he had agreed for the previous evening. He had heard what the other Jews had been asking us, and was ashamed of the modesty of his own demands. He, too, like the Jew of the diamond studs, was sent out of the hotel a trifle faster than he entered it.

Once more the business of finding a horse-boy and making a contract had to be undergone, but with a somewhat better result; for about midday (the fellow having agreed to find four horses and a guide who could speak Russian by 9 A.m.) a Jew, speaking only Georgian, with three (not four) of the sorriest steeds since Rosinante, arrived at our hotel. But we had had enough of bargaining with Jew horse dealers, so we said nothing, but packing ourselves and saddle-bags on the miserable screws, turned our backs on Kutais.

It was a day of insufferable heat, the sun beating down on the low hills round the town in a way that made my head ache in spite of the green leaves inside my helmet and the white towel bound round the outside. The only things with life in them that looked happy were the stolid black buffaloes whose broad backs were just visible above water in some of the shallows of the Rion, and even they were almost too lazy and hot to flap their ears.

For us in our narrow saddles, going at a crawl on animals utterly destitute of any liveliness, always up or down steep inclines, even the beautiful scenery had not much attraction. Sometimes for versts we would wind our way through a succession of straggling villages, half hid in neat well-kept orchards, shut in with wattled fences. The sight of them made our parched lips ache for the fruit which was not yet ripe. The season was not a happy one in some things; too early for fruit and too late to see the dark masses of rhododendron thicket that fringed our path, bright with its yellow blossom. We had been too busy to get anything to eat before starting, so that in spite of the heat, our appetites beganto be troublesome long before our day's work was over; but once having made a start we determined to hold out until night compelled a stoppage. Our horses, too, had nothing all day; but to this they seem used, and their owner laughed at the idea of their wanting food before bedtime.

All along our path we met wayfarers either on foot or horseback, many of them in spite of this heat exposing their bare heads to the sun's rays. One fellow, with a dense mass of black hair, trudged bare-headed and barefooted beside us more than half the day, and by taking short cuts and occasionally trotting, oftener waited for our horses than our horses for him. All the men we met gave us a courteous greeting, and here round Kutais all seemed happy and well-to-do.

At last when the sun had long ago set, and the owls were beginning to make themselves heard along our wooded track, we came to a duchan, that is, an open dram shop, a roughly constructed wooden hut, with an open front, in which were displayed half a dozen dirty white bottles partly filled with villainous watki, a bundle or two of dried fish, and a thing like a defunct pig on its back, legs in air, which constitutes the cellar, and is the skin holding all the wine of the establishment. There is another compartment in which a broad board, covered with matting, offers sleeping accommodation to all and sundry, while through a narrow partition they hear their horses busily munching at their hard-earned food. We have seen better inns than this and tasted better wine than the raw red fluid contained in the pig skin, but no rest was ever much sweeter, no wine more refreshing, than that we obtained at the end of our first day's march from Kutais.

C'est le premier pas qui coute is peculiarly applicable to the first day's ride in Tartar saddles, and we were heartily glad it was over, and the chickens screaming in the hands of the cook. Just as the last sounds of the horses' feeding seemed to have ceased, and the half dozen drunken peasants to have become too drunk to shout any more—just, in fact, as our eyes seemed closing, and we were sailing away into regions of dreamless sleep, our Jew roused us with the intelligence that the horses were ready, and if we wanted to get to Oni that day we must start at once.

It was barely dawn, and neither of us were keen to leave our rest so early; but we did it with a grumble—a grumble which on Frank's part was terribly intensified on hearing we were to have no breakfast before starting; none, in fact, until the end of our first stage. This, I think, was the point at which Frank first began to doubt the pleasures of Caucasian travel.

When you are travelling in this country on horseback, and are told that it will take you a certain number of days to reach a particular spot, you must remember that these 'days' are counted from earliest dawn to an hour or so after dusk, and are not ordinary twelve hour days.

We soon found that our resting-place of last night, Tkiboole [Tkibuli], was situated at the foot of a considerable chain of hills, up whose steep sides we had now to climb. So steep were they, and so weak did our ponies appear, that Frank and I at once dismounted, and began the day with a long stiff climb, to which our only objection was that its labours were not shared by our guide who, utterly careless of his horse, sat where he was, smoking placidly. It is to my mind one of the worst traits in the Caucasian character, that these people care nothing for either horse or dog as friends, regarding them as mere machines, only to be noticed with a kick, and never thanked by a caress.

This little climb from Tkiboole to the crest of Nakerala was the only piece of the road between Oni and Kutais over which a droschky might not safely be driven. At the top of the ridge the road led to a cleft, through which we passed, and as we went we were met full in the face by the delicious free breezes which greet you on every summit, while masses of white mist just tinged with sunlight, came rolling through the pass to meet us. In another minute the whole view burst upon us.

The crest of the ridge is double, and the path winds through a kind of basin between the two ridges, in which grow dense masses of rhododendron thicket, whence rise here and there, tall and gaunt, a few giant pines; one huge white fellow, blasted many a year ago, towering high above the rest. The whole

place was wrapt in mist, through which the faint rays of the newly risen sun were diffused, giving a peculiarly wild look to the whole. Along this double crest runs a stream, the Tchaouri, of deep clear water on a bed of silver sand, with an exceedingly sluggish current, in which we were told large quantities of trout were to be found; trout, too, not such as are generally found in mountain burns, but grand fellows of from four to six pounds' weight. But though I looked carefully, and, thanks to considerable practice on the Colne, am by no means slow to mark a rising fish, I never saw a rise, either here or elsewhere, in the three months I was in the country.

Not very far from where the road crosses it, this stream disappears, and after a subterranean course of several versts again emerges. At either end of the subterranean passage the country folk say the trout swarm.

Beyond this stream the forest gradually became more open and the trees larger, many of them being splendid silver beeches of unusual size; others grand pines hoary with age, and festooned with long tresses of silver-grey beard-moss, which, I believe, like ivy and other parasites, kills as it beautifies.

The day we crossed Nakerala happened to be a holiday, and all the folk of the countryside were out enjoying themselves. Hence it happened that as we came down into the lower land we met frequent groups of bluecoated peasants carrying long poles armed with tiny tridents for the spearing of trout. Every male in the villages we passed through seemed to be bent on fishing, and the trout of the neighbouring burns must have had a rough time of it before nightfall. In the villages we found the idle dames of these anglers, clad in many-coloured garments, and hanging about in groups somewhere on the way to the church. Some few here and there drew their face cloths over their faces, but we found this by no means the rule amongst the people of Radcha.

Sigortsminda is one of the prettiest villages on the road—a busy, prosperous-looking place in a well-cultivated plain, with a large lake in its midst. The golden streaks of cultivated land run out on every side, until they meet and are lost in patches of dark forest pine; while far away to right and left roll long stretches of purple hillside, over which in the far distance loom the beautiful snow-peaks of some of the satellites of Elbruz.

The cottages of the village remind you at once of Switzerland, being like them in everything, even to the roofs of plank kept down by boulders. Here we breakfasted; and here I was almost tempted to stay awhile by the accounts of bears in the immediate neighborhood of Nakerala; and though eventually visions of mountain sheep in the far distant peaks induced me to proceed, I heartily commend Nakerala, with its trout streams and its bears, to any who come after me and don't wish to make too great a toil of their pleasure. From Sigortsminda to Oni was a very weary pilgrimage, our poor little beasts done to a turn, and ourselves tired with much walking, our throats parched with thirst, and our saddles too hot to sit in.

Some of the scenery on the road would amply repay any artist who would visit the country; such views as those of the ruined castles beyond Sigortsminda, and the glimpse of the river Rion as it hurtles along grey and stern between its walls of rugged grey rock at the bridge of Tsess, being hard to beat for beauty in any country. But no one seems to have painted or even photographed the Caucasus, except to such a limited extent as it is seen from the Vladikavkaz road; at least, if they have done so, I have never been lucky enough to come across any of their sketches.

Villages were, luckily for us, of frequent occurrence by the roadside; and in each of these we got a few minutes' rest and a glass of rough wine or water. The heat was at midday almost insufferable, being as much as 160° in the open; and had it not been for these frequent pauses, and the constant recurrence of a kind of plum-tree (Cornus mascula), bearing a small round fruit of a brilliant yellow, with the most exquisite flavour imaginable, I don't think we should have reached Oni that day. As it was, Frank was knocked up for a day or two afterwards by his exertions in the sun, and I was almost as bad.

In some of the stony passes on the banks of the Rion, through which our road lay, were vast numbers of butterflies, almost all of which were new to me. Amongst them were the beautiful swallow tail, a few large copper, and, commonest of all, a very quickwinged vision of loveliness which I have been unable to identify.

Perhaps the prettiest sight which met my eyes all that long summer afternoon was a regular troop of butterflies, swallow tails, and pale clouded yellows, sitting on a small moist patch of ground where a clear little mountain spring fell from the roots of two great ferns into a pool below. The heat was so intense that even these children of the sun had come there, I suppose, for shade and refreshment.

It seemed to me then, and often afterwards, that there is a field open for the entomologist in the Caucasus in which very few have reaped before, and in which a very plentiful harvest is waiting to be gathered in. Herr Radde, the Curator of the Tiflis Museum, has a very good collection of butterflies; but even I, in my two or three visits to the Caucasus, though but a casual student of entomology, feel convinced that I have seen several varieties in my travels of which there are no specimens at Tiflis.

The daylight was fast departing, though the heat was far from going with it, when my poor little screw stumbled along the last half verst to Oni. Somehow or other my friend and the Jew had fallen behind, but before my mental vision was the hope of a steaming samovar and a refreshing wash; so, instead of waiting for them, I pushed on alone into the little medley of roughly built wooden houses, called Oni, the capital of the government of Radcha, perhaps the richest in natural productions of any government in the Caucasus.

The governor's house was not much different to the houses round it, but a glimpse of a cool duck uniform on a verandah inclined me to the belief that I had found the house I sought, and a second glance which descried a couple of ladies sitting sipping their tea confirmed my belief. Without more ado I tied up my steed, and, climbing the stairs, saluted the ladies and presented my letter at the duck uniform. Though surprised at first at the extreme directness of my mode of procedure, Baron Geikin—for it was he—became in a moment the most kindly of hosts, putting his house and all that was in it at our disposal at once. But in spite of the tea and rest my voice would not come back for nearly an hour except in dull, hollow tones, which almost frightened their producer. This was, however, the only effect of the long, hot ride, and wore off before morning.

At Oni we spent the night and part of the next day in engaging horses, and an interpreter, presented to us as a friend by the governor. It was when introducing our interpreter to us that the Baron ventilated a theory, of which we found him very full, that the whole of the tribes of the Caucasus are of Jewish origin, adducing in favour of his theory their personal appearance, the fact that some of the oldest princely families of the Caucasus claim Jewish descent, and that the Jews themselves aver that the Tables of the Law, given to them at Sinai, are now hidden in the Caucasus, three expeditions having been already sent from Amsterdam to seek and recover them. Besides this he alleged that all antique relics found in the Caucasus were Hebrew, and that on every Tcherkess prince's tomb of bygone days you will find the incription, 'Potomka Sudaria Davida'— descendant of the Lord David. Besides this, 'Oori,' which is used in Persian and all Caucasian tongues for Jew, appears constantly in Caucasian names of places, &c, as, for example, 'Gooriel.'

Personally I can vouch for only one of his statements. The inhabitants of the Caucasus are wonderfully Jewish in type, and never more so than when they are beautiful. A beauty of Mingrelia with her raven hair, rather hard black eyes, and aquiline features is as purely Jewish as anything can be in appearance. If they are of Jewish origin, their long sojourn in wild, uncivilised mountain regions has certainly brought out many of the finer traits of the race, which seem to have been lost by the dwellers in towns.

The province of Radcha is, we were told, peculiarly rich in minerals, and efforts are, I believe, being made to attract foreign capitalists to open up mines there. Along our route from Oni, which we left late the following evening, beds of magnificent slate cropped up by the river; while close by the new bridge spanning the Rion where the road to Glola branches off from the main road to Gebi, we found just on the edge of the grand pine forest fringing the river a spring of strongly impregnated iron water. Near Glola itself is another spring which I did not see, but of which the natives had much to say in favour of its wonderful purgative and other medicinal qualities.

We passed one night, en route to Glola, at the little hamlet of Ootsara, although we had to effect a forcible entry at the inhospitable duchan. It was not until the door seemed yielding beneath the sturdy blows of our interpreter, and he seemed every moment likely to be within reach of the innkeeper, whom he was loudly threatening all the while with instant death, that the sleepy old rascal turned out from his lair amongst the pigskins, and let us in.

All the houses in Ootsara are of a temporary character, capable of being transported (i.e. what is perishable of them) to warmer climes for the nine months of snow, during which the village is deserted, and indeed buried. Thanks to its mineral springs and delightfully cool temperature, it is rather a favourite resort during the three hot months of the summer; but ruins of rock, patches of shattered forest, and a huge collection of debris near the river, told a story of the fury of storm and avalanche to which it is subject in winter.

To say that the scenery on the road to Glola is beautiful would be mere repetition. Wherever you have pine forests, mountains, and a rapid mountain river rushing through all, the scenery must necessarily be beautiful, and these elements of natural beauty you have everywhere along the road from Kutais to Gebi. But for all that the village of Glola may vie with any in the Caucasus for picturesqueness, as the natives say it does for wealth.

In all villages in Radcha and Svanetia there is a house set apart for the use of travellers, which goes by the high-sounding title of 'cancellaria.' High-sounding as the title is, the quarters are generally poor enough—a couple of bare rooms, empty of everything save the live stock left starving on the premises by the last sojourner within their walls, the windows glassless portals to let in the cold night air, and, worse than all, no possibility of privacy. Such is the ordinary cancellaria. That at Glola was no exception to the rule, and in five minutes our kit was deposited on the floor, and our horses tied to the supports of the balcony, whither we had also betaken ourselves, because the room indoors was too dark to be in without a candle, and being little after midday we felt disinclined for artificial light as yet. On the balcony there was light and life enough.

On arriving at Glola we had sent at once for the starchina to whom we had a letter; and as a result of our sending, everyone in the village, except the starchina, was at once in attendance, so that the balcony was as noisy as Babel and as crowded as the Army and Navy Co-operative Stores on Saturday morning.

At Oni everyone had told us that Glola was par excellence the home of Bruin; and indeed that they had not altogether lied was evidenced by a couple of fairly fresh skins spread out on a neighbouring cottage; but though there were bears about, we could get no one to guide us to their haunts. Every man in our balcony (and small as it was, it was groaning dangerously under the weight of thirty-one men and a woman) was a hunter; but as they had no dogs to find the bears with, and had had no rain to make the ground sufficiently soft for tracking, and as above all it was for them the only busy part of the year, no one was forthcoming as a guide.

Never having shot bears in any other part of the world I don't know how people manage elsewhere; but for the sake of those who have never seen Bruin at home, I may say here that to go promiscuously into a forest where they are even in large numbers is seldom much good. However quiet you may be, old Michael generally manages to hear you; and big and unwieldy as he looks, a blackbird would make as much noise getting away in the thick bush as he would. Though you almost ran into him, unless he was very much startled, the odds are he would sneak off through the rhododendrons, without your ever suspecting his presence. In places like the forests on the Black Sea coast, where human beings rarely intrude, you may, it is true, catch him making an early breakfast in the chestnut clumps; but in places like Glola, where he is constantly seeing or hearing human beings, he is as hard to get a shot at as the British wood pigeon.

I was the more annoyed at being able to do nothing at Glola, as I knew that in this part of Radcha the bear that occurs most frequently is the species with the collar mark on the neck, of which I was particularly anxious to get a specimen, the more so as I should like to see whether English naturalists would agree with my friend Dr. Radde that this collared bear is a mere variety of the ordinary brown bear. That the collar is distinctly visible in all ages of the animal I am convinced, having seen specimens from earliest cub-hood to downright old age ; and I have the authority of all the Caucasian hunters I ever met for saying that this bear is as different from the ordinary bear in disposition as in coat, being, though a smalleranimal, much more dangerous, invariably charging when molested.

Naturally, on arriving at Glola our first business had been to order refreshment for man and beast, and I know nothing more trying than the difficulty of obtaining the merest necessaries at large and prosperous villages, when they are the end of a long journey. The whole of the last long half of your way—hungry, thirsty, and tired—you have been consoling yourself with the thought that however wearisome those last ten versts may be, there is a fixed time at which, if you only persevere, you may slake your thirst and rest your weary limbs. What is the reality? When you have struggled to your goal, you find no house to take you in for some time, no food to buy, for there are no shops or bazaars, and often even the water is a good long step from the village. Then when you have thrown down your things on the bare floor of the beggarly cancellaria, there is no place indoors clean enough to lie down on; and outside, instead of peace and rest, you are mobbed by a score or two of unclean and inquisitive savages, possessed also of the strongest lungs in the world, who hold long discourses on you, talk to you incessantly, though you don't understand a word, and investigate and play with every article you possess, from your telescope to your toothpick. After enduring this kind of thing for an hour or so, and finding the promises of our numerous friends to bring food unlikely to be fulfilled, I despatched our interpreter to find the starchina, and bring him to me by fair means or foul.

Then I wandered out into the village to see what the peasants' life seemed like here. As it was Sunday, of course all the men were at home and idle, most of them indeed were amusing themselves with a careful investigation of Frank and his belongings on the balcony; and when I came back one of them, a gentleman in a blue shirt, had mounted the table and was delivering a spirited lecture on England and the English, taking my unsuspecting friend for his text. But though none were afield to-day, there was some little work for the women, in the morning and at sundown, to spread out their stores of grain on the threshing floor, casting it like golden motes in the sunbeams, and at night sweeping it up again into its sacks. This done and the cattle tended, the women, like the men, gave themselves to idleness. There was a church in the village, but I saw no one near it, though some grand game heads hung up as votive offerings drew me thither. The whole village indeed, save for our balcony, seemed deserted, and it was not until an hour had slipped away and I went to search for my truant messenger, that I found the reason of this.

A village in Southern Russia is all one long straight street: a village in Radcha or Svanetia has no streets at all, but is a mass of houses huddled together anyhow, between which you squeeze through narrow little alleys, of a thousand windings, over mixens, round the backs of cowsheds, over precipitous stone heaps, to your goal. Winding my way through such a maze as this I came suddenly upon an explanation of the empty houses. At my feet was a boiling little torrent, some twenty or thirty feet wide, with high steep banks, from one to the other of which a single pine trunk formed an uninviting bridge. On the far side a beautiful lawn sloped up into the forest, and half way up it stood a single magnificent walnut tree. Here, with the flickering light and shade playing on them through the leaves overhead, reclined at least half the village, round, alas! a very dirty tablecloth, a heap of cheese, radishes, and chamois flesh, half a dozen great terra cotta jars of wine, and one wine glass. There were all the old grey-beards of the village, including the starchina, a large number of picturesquely untidy women, and at the top of the group, by the tree root, my truant interpreter, and a man and woman in European costume. Though I had no fancy for crossing the bridge, I went across and joined the group, being received with tremendous applause, whilst Platon introduced me to his Russian friends, a soldier and his wife staying at Glola, that the woman might go through a course of water cure at its springs.

As soon as I had been settled down into the best place, fresh jars of wine were brought, and with much unction the speechmaking and toast-drinking began, while as I did not care for the solids, a little Tcherkess girl got up into the tree and shook me down walnuts for my wine.

In spite of all I have heard of Caucasian female beauty, this girl of twelve was the only really lovely Caucasian I remember to have seen, but she was as beautiful as a dream. As a rule the women seemed to me plain, but then the Mingrelians, whose beauty is most talked of in the Caucasus, are of a thoroughly Hebrew type, which I dislike; and for the others I admit to being unable to see loveliness through an inch and a half of dirt. The sight of the bridge which had to be recrossed, and the memory of my Kutais experiences, soon prevailed over the entreaties of my new friends; and after drinking with half a dozen of the ladies, and getting rid of the unpleasant taste of the rough wine with a long draught of the glorious natural soda water that bubbled up without price and without stint not far from our feet, I made my adieux, and carried off my guide with me to the other side of the stream.

To stay in a place where Platon had found friends, and where I could get no hunters and no dogs, was out of the question; so by dint of never losing sight of him for a moment, I made the unwilling Platon obtain horses before nightfall, and long ere the garrulous inhabitants had asked us half the questions they had to ask we were en route for Gebi.

Such a rare night as that on which we rode from Glola to Gebi is enough to soothe even spirits unhinged by haggling with Caucasian horseboys; and though the road was in places dangerously bad, and a puff of hot air like a furnace blast came from time to time from the baked hillsides, marring the evening cool, we still rode on happy through a perfect dream of beauty. For the most part all was dark and wild, like a realisation of one of Dora's pictures ; but now and again the moon would seem to sail up from behind some lower peak than usual, and throw flashes of weird, uncertainlight on the Rion, rock-bound and raging far below, while at the same time she spread the forest lawns with a cloth of silver, and frosted every trembling leaf with silver light.

High up in the mountains on the other side the Rion we saw from time to time a solitary beacon, embosomed in forest, burning like a ruby on the mountain's breast. From this far-away light came now and again faint echoes of wild unearthly cries, whoopings and whistlings, the ringing of bells and beating of gongs, as if gnomes of the mountain and forest were holding midnight revel there. Could we have looked closer we should have found nothing more supernatural than a wakeful Glola husbandman perched on a raised platform in the middle of the growing maize patch, which he had cultivated amongst the great forest trees, whence (were he not there) the long grey form of old Bruin would steal out every night as the gloaming closed in to rob him of his hard-earned crop. As it is, Bruin knows so well how rarely the husbandman's bullets come near enough to do more than startle him, that he is probably even now at work in some corner where the forest trees cast a shadow, and the sound of his devastations do not reach the watcher's platform.

Further on, where the track passes through a scattered wood of box-trees, on a boulder-studded lawn, we saw a deep pit dug back into the face of a hill, which overlooked the site of a now deserted maize field. Here a year ago another peasant passed many a silent hour (while man was at rest, and only the beasts of the forest roamed the moonlit woodland ways), watching with finger on trigger for the four-footed enemies with whom he had to maintain the struggle for existence. There is no lack of excitement for the farmer here, who, when he has cleared his patch and sown the seed, must guard the produce nightly, or lose all guerdon of his labour.

After passing this hill the way wound down into the bed of the Rion, no longer now the broad peaceful stream, that seems to have grown sluggish and stupid ere it pours its full flood into the Black Sea, nor even the angry, energetic torrent that overthrows all obstacles, and boils onward beneath the grey rocks of Tsess, but a company of half a dozen small streams wandering through a ruinous waste of stony river-bed, over which they unite in winter into a swollen cataract. Here, for the first time, our attention was drawn to large sparks of green light that flew glimmering here and there amongst the birch trees, and it was some time before we realised that they were the first and only fire-flies we had yet seen in the Caucasus.

The last step of the night's march was over a log bridge which spanned the broadestlimb of the Rion below Gebi. I venture to think that any English equestrian who was unused to these rough constructions would at first hesitate before crossing at all, and when he did would certainly prefer to cross, if cross he must, on his own feet and not in the saddle. One of our party, Platon, came near to having good cause to regret that he had not done thus ; for in spite of the sure-footedness of Caucasian ponies, the holes in this bridge were in such unfair proportion to the solid parts that the poor little quadruped, putting a fore leg through a wide opening, came on his knees and all but rolled over, horse and rider, into the river below.

Of course there were no lights in Gebi. Men in the Caucasus believe that Nature knows best when it is time to work or play and when to sleep, so that the moment the sun is down, unless they are hunting or acting sentinel in their fields, the villagers lie down and sleep until a new day. Groping our way through the houses, our guide stopped us at last with the welcome announcement that we might dismount. We had reached our sleeping quarters.

A perilous ladder, no bad exercise for young climbers, led to the second storey of the cancellaria, where beyond a balcony were two rooms, one of which had rafters to support a floor, but no floor, and the other a floor, perhaps, if one could find it beneath accumulations of varied dirt. The windows were open to the pure night air, or rather the casements were windowless, and the air and rain when there was any was as much at home indoors as without. But there was a table, and in a few minutes Frank had got the tent-bag laid out for a pillow, whilst I took the saddle ; and head to tail, side by side, with our boots in dangerous proximity to each other's mouths, we were soon ready for sleep and our insect enemies. But we were premature. Though the village was hushed when we entered it, the news of our arrival roused it, and we soon had the ordinary assembly of sheep-skinned savages shouting round us.

Sheepskins themselves, when worn unwashed for more than three years, are not savoury things to poor European nostrils, but why, oh men of Gebi, why overpower that comparatively innocent smell by the strongest and filthiest of garlic?

Through the first half of the night we were forced to make merry with about a dozen of the elders of the village, who ordered wine to entertain us with, and with that fairness for which they are remarkable emptied the jars and left us to pay for them. They told us the country was alive with game; that not a man amongst them but had slain hie thousands and tens of thousands, and the morrow we, too, should kill bears and chamois within a stone's throw of the village. But for all that, when the entertainment was over and our endurance at an end, there was not a single guide forthcoming for the next day, nor even a horse promised to carry our baggage.

The letters which our kind friend, Baron Geikin, had given us to the starchina were, no doubt, powerful and useful in their way, but unluckily there is no law obliging the starchina to keep at home or leave another to perform his duties in his absence, so we never found anyone to present our letters to.

At last, there being no dry place left to expectorate upon, and no more liquor forthcoming, the Elders of Gebi kindly took themselves, their 'makorkha' (a vile kind of rough native tobacco, smoked out of small pipes such as opium-smokers use), and their garlic off to the bosoms of their respective families; and after Platon had cleared decks as well as he was able, we drew our bourkas round us and slept.

When the sun, gleaming in through the roof, woke us out of our heavy slumbers, we entered on another of those vexatious days of bargaining, worry, and procrastination, which take most of the pleasure away from a tour in the Caucasus. Until eleven we could find no one. Then we lost our interpreter, who went to find the starchina. Meanwhile, appetites of English growth began to murmur and rebel at the delay of breakfast, and my half-famished friend and myself made sorties from our stronghold in turn in our endeavours to obtain food.

Unluckily the people of Gebi don't speak Russian, so without Platon we were almost helpless. A quantity of small fowls had an utterly demoralising effect on Frank, and had it not been for extraordinary activity on the part of his intended booty, I am afraid myunfortunate friend would have been guilty of petty larceny at least. But necessity is the mother of invention; and after several abortive attempts, we, by our united efforts, produced an exceedingly striking picture of a cockrel in chalk on a neighbouring wall, after which Frank crowed violently, flapped his coat-tails, went through the pantomime of cutting his own throat, and even of laying an egg; after which he went chuckling about the place like a veritable old hen, until he was purple in the face with his exertions. But our endeavours bore fruit, and before long we had a hatful of eggs, and even a brace and a half of chickens (three for a rouble), and what was even better, learnt the Georgian for these articles of diet for another occasion.

Breakfast over, we got a glimpse at the official life of Gebi. The starchina, accompanied by his secretary, came to visit us, carrying an official document in their hands.

The cancellaria, it seemed, was the starchina's office, in which he transacted all his state affairs. After a considerable search, and some strong language from his chief, who was not quite sober, the secretary managed to find the official seal of the town hidden in a crevice in the wall. From another crevice he produced a tallow candle, a treasure not to be matched this side of Oni, and then came a fierce debate as to where the seal should go. When they had decided that about a dozen impressions should be scattered broadcast over the written part of the document, they appealed to me; and though I daresay they followed out their original plan eventually, for the time being the Elder contented himself by licking paper and seal, holding the latter in the candleflame for a time, and then making an irregular black mark at the foot of the document as directed by me. After this, the seal and candle were returned to their old hiding places, and tired with the duties of office, the great men took themselves off for a drink.

The office of starchina is awarded by election amongst the members of each village, and the duration of office was, I was told, from three to seven years; but on this head my informants disagreed. As a rule, the office is an unimportant one, as its holder has no real authority, and the members of his village community appear to obey or disobey him pretty much as they please. Moreover, the position is one not greatly sought after, and one of our guides assured me that three roubles' worth of watki judiciously distributed would any day secure the election of the man who gave it.

It would be unkind in me to ask my readers to follow me through the hours of weary haggling, under a scorching sun, to which I had to submit, before horses and men were at last hired; making agreements with men who have no notion of sticking to their contracts, and searching for some glimmerings of truth amongst an ocean of lies to guide me in my search for game. At least half a dozen times I had, after waiting patiently for the advent of promised horses, to go in search of their owners, only to find them round the corner, not dreaming about getting the animals, but eagerly debating with their friends how much more they should demand from me on the next interview. Half a dozen times during the day, with my head aching and tongue dry with talking, I had to plunge my fists up to my elbows into my pockets to keep them from dangerous proximity with the rascals' noses; and then when I had almost choked myself with suppressed vexation, my idiotic interpreter would lose his temper on his own account, upset all my negotiations, and give me all the work to do over again.

Still, when a whole day had been wasted, and even the oldest man was tired of talking, I had got two guides, one of whom had been a bearer in Mr. Freshfield's employ in 1869, and who rejoiced in the name of Vassili, and who, had he not been so devoted to garlic, would have been a very good fellow. The other we unanimously and with great justice entitled 'the duffer.'

As we intended only to make a short excursion to begin with to some tur-haunted springs of bitter water in the neighbouring mountains, we left our impedimenta in charge of the village priest, and having had a pair of sandals apiece manufactured by our gillies, and received Platon's assurance that he had laid in all necessary supplies of creature comforts, we left Gebi for the first time about five o'clock on the evening of August 21.

Michael Myers Shoemaker, The Heart of the Orient: Saunterings through Georgia, Armenia, Persia (1906) - Part 1

Michael M. Shoemaker (1853-1924) was American professional travel writer who achieved a literary success through his travelogues in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After graduating from Cornell University in 1874, he devoted his life to traveling the world over and studying various cultures and peoples. He wrote numerous books of travel and history, including "The Heart of the Orient: Saunterings through Georgia, Armenia, Persia..." (1906) that was based on a lengthy trip he undertook in 1902-1903. Departing from Constantinople in the winter of 1802, he travelled through "the quaint and curious" Georgia (which he had first visited eight years prior) before proceeding to Iran.

TIFLIS

The day's ride is very beautiful, and as we fortunately have slight showers, there is no dust, while the air is laden with all the delicious fresh odours of spring. A Vermont boy would be amused at the attempts of these people toward tilling the soil. The plough used is of the most primitive description, and is drawn by ten yoke of young steers, guarded and conducted by seven men. The field that they are at work upon certainly is not more than three acres in extent, and at their rate of progress it should be ready for planting about October 1st, this being only March. The Vermont boy, with a good plough and stout pair of horses, would do the whole thing between the hours of milking and his noonday dinner, even allowing time for the removal of the usual rocks to be found on all New England farms. 

Numerous ruined castles and towers are passed, perched high up on the mountains or close to the rushing river. Armenian churches are now inclosed in high, strong, fortress-like walls; otherwise such jewels as adorn their shrines would prove too tempting to the robbers of the mountains.

This valley of Tiflis reminds one of many in France. Hedges of primrose, poppies, and cornflowers, roses and cherries; yet with all its resemblance to France, there is a certain indescribable something that recalls the "Land of the Vulture," and one would not be surprised to see the minarets of Cairo rise from the valley. The resemblance is even stronger when Tiflis comes in sight. 

The capital of Georgia looks very Eastern, very Oriental, in the evening sunlight. But the first entrance into her streets convinces us that we are under the dominion of the Czar. Russian police stand here, there, and everywhere, and the wide berth that is given them demonstrates better than words the control that Government exercises over this southern possession. There is a monument near the western entrance of the town, on the spot where the Czar Paul nearly lost his life through a runaway team. It would have been better if the accident had succeeded in ridding Russia of that licentious monarch. I fancy that the Empress Catherine imported her "particular friends" from this section. The men are very handsome, but of the far-famed Georgian women I can say very little. From here the Turks of old procured their beauties, and the types which pleased them are still plentiful in the streets of Tiflis—huge in size, with flabby, chalky skins, and faces with no ray of feeling or intelligence. That was their idea of beauty, and they could not have come to a better market. I have seen but one woman I could call beautiful. I shall mention her farther on.

I find, upon descending at the excellent Hotel de Londres, that I am "remembered" once more in Georgia, and all the forlorn and lonely feeling departs as the pleasant-voiced landlady, Madame Richter, advances with both hands extended, and a "Welcome again to Tiflis!" I am shown up-stairs into the same room, most comfortable in all respects, and I rub my eyes in some doubt as to whether I have ever been away.

How dirty we are! How delicious the huge baths of the town feel to our tired bodies! The water is naturally hot and I sit for half an hour under a strong spout. There is absolutely nothing that they will not furnish you at these bath-houses, if you pay for it. But all things are very expensive at Tiflis, as I discover this morning when I desire to cable home—six roubles per word ($3.00); more than from Calcutta. I know it is wrong, pure robbery, in fact, but I must send the message. As the rates from London are only one shilling per word to New York, all the rest, with the exception of our inland rate at home, goes to the lines between here and England, or to the operator's pocket here, which is much more likely.

The bazaars of Tiflis are commonplace, and, like most bazaars, dirty—but not picturesque in their dirt. In addition they are absolutely wanting in all that peculiar charm which makes those of Cairo and Tunis so delightful to wander through and linger in. Nor does one find here displayed all the thousands of attractive articles which in those other cities cause one to return laden to the hotel. 

Through the centre of the town, between deep walls of rock down which pours the sewage of the place, sweeps the river Kur, a most repulsive-looking stream. I might have described this river and the cliffs as possessed of the beauty of Eden, but it would have been somewhat wide of the truth; I might have filled these bazaars with old silver, antique firearms and swords, and fairy stuffs of all sorts; laden their air with the perfume of the roses and lilies; made you drink delicious coffee and eat "Turkish delight" therein, while you stared at the veiled women and gorgeously costumed eunuchs; I might have described a mosque that would surpass that of Sultan Hassan. But I fear, had you come here and found the river and its cliffs repulsive, the bazaars full of all that is unattractive, the coffee and Turkish delight entirely lacking, also the mosque, you might have voted me a fraud. It will surely be better to find this capital of the Georgians more pleasing than you had expected, and if you content yourself with the panorama she displays, you will vote her enchanting; for the world, I think, holds no more superb view than that presented by this city of Tiflis approached from the great Darial Pass over the Caucasus.

After the death of [Queen] Tamara [in the early 13th century], Jenghis Khan swept like a black cloud over the valley, leaving such desolation and destruction that Tiflis has never recovered her ancient glory.

I met this morning, in the court of the hotel, an Englishman who has been living here for five years —at least he has lived in the country that length of time—and when I questioned him as to the climate he replied that, to those who lived here, hell possessed no further terrors—that is, in the matter of heat.

Trees of any size are unknown in Georgia. I noticed in crossing the Caucasus that nothing larger than a scrub was to be seen: no forests of stately pines near the summits, no dense groves of majestic trees lower down, no "aisles of the forest" spreading around one; plenty of green, but all so diminutive that even the telegraph wires are supported on rails from the railroad to which are bound sticks of timber certainly not more than ten feet long, but quite as long as can be found here or anywhere around here. The result is that refuse petroleum is the usual fuel.

I am awakened this morning by a burst of martial music, which draws me out into the fresh air, and I find that the town is all alive with soldiers wending their way from all directions to the public square. At its entrance stands a small Russian church, and the music of the many bands becomes reverential and tender as they pass the holy icons, although their selections are somewhat singular. I confess to being somewhat shocked, and almost look to see one particular saint in a long purple garment strike into a skirt dance. But no; neither does he drift into a waltz as the tender notes of Auf Wiedersehen are wafted on the air. This is the anniversary of the day when Russia finally settled, in the conquest of Schamyl, the Caucasus question, in which she employed 180,000 men to conquer the 15,000 of that chieftain... To-day his conquerors celebrate all this by holding high mass in the gardens here. The soldiers are arranged in a huge square and stand at attention as the general passes around in inspection. Russia does not neglect the religious welfare of her troops. Daily attendance at service is required, and to-day her priests, gorgeous in green and gold and purple, hold high celebration of the sacred rite. Then one and all are blessed, and with a fanfare of trumpets the troops move off to their barracks.

[...]

We spend our first Sunday in sleeping late into the morning and in a long stroll in the afternoon. The hills which surround Tiflis are barren and drear to the point where they rise to the higher mountains. While every here and there an Armenian church is sharply silhouetted against their dun-coloured sides. The ruined walls of the ancient fortress crown an eminence in the centre of the valley, and as we pass along them the town itself spreads all round, some hundreds of feet below, with its flat red, green, and blue roofs offering the only bits of colour in all the prospect; but the most characteristic features are the round, lantern-like cupolas of the Armenian churches, rising here, there, and everywhere. Their sides are perpendicular and their tops like an old-fashioned extinguisher of tin. This sect [Armenians] is, from an economic point, the backbone of Georgia, and is increasing rapidly. 

There are comparatively few Russian churches in Tiflis, but those of this ancient people [Armenians] are many. Russia forces them to use her language, but she cannot bend them to her form of religion, and that is indeed a thorn in her side. They are increasing rapidly and have more than doubled in numbers since the northern power conquered Tiflis. Their holy city is Etchmiazin, and the cathedral of that city furnishes the model for all these churches, which, be they large or small, are exactly of the same form,—a Latin cross with generally three round towers, one, large, in the centre and one on either side thereof, each surmounted by the cone of metal. In the interior are three altars, a centre and two side ones, immediately under the cupolas, and before each of which hangs, as in the temple at Jerusalem, a heavy veil, drawn aside at certain times.

By making this ancient sect feel that they are outnumbered by keeping them from office and by forcing the use of the Russian language, the Government of the Czar hopes finally to absorb them into the Greek Church, but the result is more than doubtful. The Empire dares not use greater force now, the occupation of this land having been a difficult step in the march south.

It is believed here that Russia is gathering for a move farther southward, and that it is but a question of a few years before she makes her southern boundary at the Arabian Sea, absorbing all of Persia, Turkey in Asia and probably in Europe, and Western China. England has often surrendered places once occupied,— has Russia ever done so? Does she not move steadily and irresistibly onward? Is not the sale to us of Alaska the only instance of a surrender of land once in her actual possession? Does any man believe that she will ever surrender Manchuria, or, on the contrary, that Peking is not her ultimate goal?

I think in my visit to Tiflis eight years ago that I did not do justice to the modern Russian city, or rather that I did not notice it as it deserved. It is all well built. The great street [present-day Rustaveli Avenue] is magnificent in length and width. There are several museums, a fine palace and church, and an opera house that would do justice to St. Petersburg, and there are several theatres, but, as in every Russian city, the pavements are horrible.

This week in Tiflis has passed very pleasantly, and I shall depart to-night with a totally different impression from that which I carried away with me in '94. Truly, pleasant companions make a great difference. As for the Hotel de Londres, I cannot too strongly express my content and satisfaction therewith. The people who keep it are Germans, the house is cleanliness itself, the table excellent, and the rooms most comfortable. In fact, I know of no hotel in Russia, those of the great cities not excepted, which can approach it. "Madame" realizes the necessity in this land for absolute cleanliness if health is to be maintained, hence her rooms are covered with oil cloth, which is washed off each day. The Turkish mats spread over this are thoroughly shaken each morning. The beds are of iron.

I may seem to dwell too long, to make too much of all this, but those of my readers who have visited these far-off lands will understand what an oasis such a house is amidst the abominations called "hotels" throughout the Russian dominions. We are charged seven roubles (about $3.50) per day, American plan, and the food is dainty and excellent.

I have seen but one Georgian woman that could be called a beauty. She was at the circus on Sunday. Her face was a pure oval, with large, black, antelope.like eyes, over which arched delicate eyebrows; a delicate, straight nose rose above a perfect mouth, and her complexion was beautiful. She wore a straight, broad gold band across her forehead and around her glossy black hair, which was bound down over her ears; from this band an emerald green veil fell far downward over a dress of the same colour. Both were of some soft stuff.

As a rule, however, the men are finer-looking than the women; many are superb specimens, and when robed in picturesque uniform [national costume] present engaging pictures. Yonder is one superbly formed and surely six feet six in height. His face and beard would do justice to Darius the King, and the former is crowned by a most picturesque turban of silver-grey astrakhan fur. His coat is of the same colour, and falls to the top of his highly polished black boots, while across his breast are two rows of long, bright cartridges, and his sword has scabbard-handle and tip of gold. He is handsome and he knows it, possessing none of the usual ignorance on that point common to our sex. On returning to the hotel I find Casimir awaiting me with the information that all is arranged for our onward movement to-morrow.

Early modern European views of Tiflis

View of Tiflis/Tbilisi. On the left, the Metekhi Church and the Narikala castle.

CHARDIN, John, Sir. Of noble knight Chardin of the great king of Persia Hoff trading Manns, Curieuse Persian- and East Indian travel description Consisting in a regular journal or Daily Verzeichnüß his in Persia and eastern India over the schwartze sea and Cholchidem filed trips, first place described by Authore itself in Frantzösischer voice / nachgehends in the English; anitzo but übersezt for its Wortreffligkeit in the High German / Geziret with beautiful Rupffern / and nöthigem register provided Leibzig, Gleditsch, 1687

View of Tiflis/Tbilisi. On the left, the Metekhi Church and the Narikala castle.

Peeters, Jacob. Description of the main cities, harbors and islands of the Gulf of Venice from the eastern side. As also cities and fortresses of Moree, and some places in Greece and the main islands of the archipelago and fortresses jcelles suitte and some famous places of Saincte Earth, and the other below Osmanic domination toward the south and the east, and some major cities in Persia and the reign of Grand Mogol while abridged. Brought to light by Jacques Peeters, Antwerp, In the market for old shoes, in 1690.

View of Tiflis.

TOURNEFORT, Joseph Pitton de. Relationship of a Voyage du Levant, made by order of the King. Containing ancient & modern history of several Islands of the Archipelago, Constantinople, the coast of the Black Sea, Armenia, Georgia, the borders of Persia, Asia Minor. With plans of cities & significant places ..., vol. ΙΙ, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, M.DCCXVII [1717].

A view of Tiflis/Tbilisi in early 18th century. This engraving was produced by one of the leading German mapmakers Iohann Baptist Homann (from Nürnberg) who held Imperial printing privileges. In 1724, Homann produced a large engraving featuring views of major cities of Caucasus and Persia.

Various Prospecte the Vornemsten cities in Persia velvet vordest one our the Caspian Sea, the Russian Empire, though in town to mehrenem Liecht and Erleuterung the newly-versertigten Persianischen land charters / ed. by Johann Baptist Homann,

Louis Guillaume Figuier, Les Races Humaines (1872)

Louis Guillaume Figuier (1819-1894) was a French scientist and writer, who, by the end of the 19th century, emerged as one of the leading popularizers of science. Born in Montpellier (France), he studied chemistry and eventually became professor of chemistry at L'Ecole de pharmacie of Montpellier and L'Ecole de Pharmacie of Paris. But he earned his fame by publishing numerous books of popular science, including Les Grandes inventions anciennes et modernes (1861), Le Savant du foyer (1862), La Terre avant le déluge (1863), La Terre et les mers (1864), Les Merveilles de la science (1867–1891) and others. His books enjoyed considerable success with the public. In this respect, one book in particular is noteworthy: Les Races Humaines (1872) where Figuier compiled, classified and described all of "human races"; the text was lavishly illustrated with 243 engravings on wood and 8 chromolithographs. The book was a success and was quickly translated into other languages and released in several editions over the next couple of decades. 

The book contains numerous mistakes and is clearly racist in its outlook, but for many Europeans, it served as an important source of information on the peoples of the world, including Georgians whom Figuier classified as one of the "Aramean" branch of the 'White Race." Figuier offers a brief description of the Georgians in a section dealing with the Caucasus but he also mentions them in the parts dealing with the Ottoman and Arab societies, noting that "besides their legitimate wives, the wealthy and the great keep a collection of Georgian and Circassian slaves." In fact, one of the eight chromolithographs was devoted to a Georgian slave.

The Georgian Family. 

The Georgian Family is gathered together on the southern slope of the Caucasus. The beauty of the 

Georgian women is proverbial. M. Moynet, in his "Journey to the Caspian and the Black Seas," tells us that they deserve all their reputation. Their physiognomy is as calm and regular as that of the immortal type handed down to us in the ancient statuary of Greece. A head-band of bright colours in the shape of a crown, and from which hangs a veil passing under the chin, forms their headdress. Two long plaits of hair fall behind, reaching nearly to their feet. Nothing can be imagined more graceful or more dignified than this head-dress. A long ribbon of the gayest hues serves them for a sash, and falls down the front of their dress to the ground. Out of doors they wrap themselves up in a flowing white cloth, which shields them from the sun, and which they wear with much grace.

The men are also generally handsome. They have preserved the Caucasian type untouched and unaltered. They wear rich dresses, embroidered with gold and silver, and carry costly, sparkling arms. They are brave and chivalrous, and are passionately fond of horses.

The Mingrelians, inhabitants of Mingrelia, a little kingdom on the shores of the Caspian Sea, resemble the Georgians in physical appearance, in manners, and in customs.

The Circassian Family.

The Circassian Family, collected in the Caucasian mountains, is composed of a population distinguished for their bravery, but very feebly civilized. The Circassian type has in the whole of the East a great reputation for beauty, and it deserves it. Most Circassians have a long oval face, a thin straight nose, a small mouth, large dark eyes, a well-defined figure, a small foot, brown hair, a very white skin, and a martial appearance.

In affinity with the Circassians are the Abases, who speak a dialect akin to Circassian. They are semi-barbarous, and live on the produce of their herds and from the spoil of their brigandage. Their features show no sign of Circassian grace. They have a narrow head, a prominent nose, and the lower half of their face is extremely short.

The Armenians

The Armenians of both sexes are remarkable for their physical beauty. Their language is nearly allied to the oldest dialects of the Aryan race, and their history is connected with that of the Medes and Persians by very ancient traditions. They have a white skin, black eyes and hair, and their features are rounder than those of the Persians. The luxuriant growth of the hair on their faces distinguishes them from the Hindoos.

The climate of Armenia is generally a cold one; but in the valleys and in the plains the atmosphere is less keen and the soil very fertile. Crops of wheat, wine, fruit, tobacco, and cotton are very plentiful there. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead are found there, but these are but little worked. Armenian horses have the reputation of being the best bred in western Asia. Cochineal, an important production of this country, is very plentiful at the foot of Ararat. Excellent manna is found in the same districts. Armenian floreals are very abundant.

Armenia nowadays constitutes the pachaliks of Erzeroum, Kara, and Dijar-Bekr in Asiatic Turkey. Besides its indigenous population, it is inhabited by Turks, Kurds, Turcomans, and the remnants of other nations who formerly made raids into their country. The Armenian is distinguished by his serious, laborious, intelligent, and hospitable disposition. He is very successful in business. Fond of the traditions of his forefathers, and attached to his government, he has a good deal of sympathy with Europeans. He becomes easily accustomed to European customs, and learns our languages with little difficulty.

The Christian religion has always been followed in Armenia, and Armenians are much attached to their church. But this is divided into several sects. The Gregorian (the creed founded by Saint Gregory), the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant religions are all to be found in Armenia. The head of the first, which is the most numerous (it musters about four million worshippers), resides at Etchmiadzia, in Russian Armenia. There is another patriarch, who is nearly independent, at Cis, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Cilicia. The patriarch of the Catholics, who are fifty thousand in number, resides at Constantinople; but a second patriarch (in partibus), whose jurisdiction extends over Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Asia Minor, dwells on Mount Libanus. The Roman Catholics of Russian Armenia belong to the see of the Metropolitan residing in St. Petersburg. The head of the Protestant church, which contains from four to five thousand souls, dwells at Constantinople.

The Ossetines

The Ossetines, who are the last branch of the Aryan race in Asia, inhabit a small portion of the chain of the Caucasian mountains, populated for the most part by races distinct from the IndoEuropeans. They resemble the peasants of the north of Russia; but their customs are barbarous, and they are given to pillage. M. Vereschaguine met with the Ossetines in his travels in the Caucasian provinces. A Cossack, with whom he had some trouble, belonged to this race. The villages of the Ossetines lie on the slopes of the mountains. On each side of the Darial Pass lofty walls, flanked by towers, are to be seen, reminding the spectator of the days of brigandage.

The Ossetine, contrary to the customs of all the other tribes of the Caucasus and of the Trans-Caucasus, uses beds, tables, and chairs. He seats himself, like most Europeans, without crossing his legs.