Sir Justin Sheil (1803–1871) was a British general and diplomat, who had spent much of his career in the service of the British East India Company. Born in Britain in 1803, he was educated at Stonyhurst and joined the 3rd Bengal Infantry in 1820. He spent the next thirteen years in India before being sent to represent the Company interests in Persia. In 1836 he was appointed secretary to the British legation in Persia, and in 1844 he succeeded Sir John McNeill as envoy and minister at the shah's court. He held this until his retirement in 1854. While in Persia (as well as traveling through Russia and the Ottoman Empire), Sheil kept a detailed journal that his wife later edited and published under the title of "Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia" (London: John Murray, 1856).
Tiflis is another Vladikafkaz (key) on the southern side of the Caucasus. We were glad to arrive at this capital of the Transcaucasian provinces, which is close to the foot of the mountains, and situated on both sides of the river Kur. Some sixty years ago it was sacked by the Shah of Persia, Agha Mahommed Khan, the founder of the dynasty of Kajar, who carried a large portion of the inhabitants, Georgians and Armenians, into slavery. I saw at Tehran a few of these unhappy captives, who all had been forced to embrace Mahommedanism [Islam], and many of whom had risen to the highest stations; just as the Circassian slaves in Constantinople became pashas, seraskiers, capitan-pashas, &c.
Tiflis has entirely recovered from this shock. It is now a most thriving, active, and bustling city, and will doubtless, when the day arrives for the development of free trade in the dominions of the Czar, become a rich emporium of commerce, situated as it is midway between the Black Sea and Caspian, and on the high road between Russia, Persia, and Asia Minor. The official part of the town is full of imposing buildings, and the native portion is equally well stored with busy shops,crowded by the motley population. Prince Woronzow's fostering care has not allowed this important part of the territory under his jurisdiction to remain without its share of his patronage. In spite of the pre-occupation of a war, not always successful, with the mountaineers, he is said to have planned many valuable institutions, to which are to be added a large and handsomely built theatre for the performance of operas, not completed at the time of our visit, besides a small theatre, for Russian comedies and farces. All these improvements evince his anxiety to promote civilization among the Georgians and Armenians. The Military Governor of Tiflis was an Armenian of Georgia, General Baibetoff [Vasili Bebutov]; a man of experience, who had distinguished himself in the campaigns of Turkey and Persia in former years. It sounded strange to find an Armenian occupying this high post, but Russia is more cosmopolite than England. A stranger of the gate is readily admitted within the temple; but it will require a change in English ideas before we find a Canadian or Maltese Governor of India, or the Cape of Good Hope. Is this facility the result of enlightenment, or does it proceed from the dearth of native talent?
If I were to form my opinion from the Georgian ladies visible in the street, which, except one evening that we went to the theatre, was the only place I had an opportunity of beholding them, I should be forced to declare that their beauty has obtained a greater reputation than it deserves. They certainly are fair, with high complexions, natural or artificial, and regular features, all of which perhaps entitle the owners to the meed of beauty; still the entire absence of animation or expression deprives the countenance of attraction. They look well, however, in their pretty dresses while young. The Armenians, when out of doors, wrap themselves up in white veils, or rather cloaks, which have a graceful effect.
At Tiflis we were lodged, as usual, at the house of an Armenian merchant. He was a man of much reputed wealth. His house was furnished with great richness, and at a cost that may be imagined when it is considered that the whole of the furniture was brought from St. Petersburg. It was much too expensive to be profaned by use, being exclusively reserved either for compulsory guests, like ourselves, or marriage and other feasts. The part of the habitation occupied by our host and his family was very humble, and far from clean.
Next to its conquerors [Russians], the Georgians are the master caste of this country. It is said that between the Georgians and the Armenians, who are found here in great numbers, there is a wonderful contrast in character and manners. The Georgian is bold, turbulent, reckless, extravagant; the Armenian is mean, cringing, timid, always intent on gain, and, unlike a Georgian, in keeping what he gains. The same characteristics mark him in Persia and Turkey, and I am told everywhere else; for, like the gipsy, he is a wanderer on the face of the earth, and is to be found in every part of Asia. He is consequently an abundant and pleasant harvest to all needy pashas, khans, hakims, and minor functionaries of misrule, easily reaped, gathered, and gleaned.
It is as unsurpassable topers [drinkers], as well as for their military qualities, which have always been acknowledged, that the Georgians have acquired notoriety. At their frequent drinking parties it is said they will pass several days and nights, almost without intermission, in quaffing the productions of the vineyards of Kakheti, a district in the mountains east of Tiflis. This wine is by no means of bad quality; it is of a deep red colour, so deep that one fancies it has been tinged with some dye to produce so intense a hue. They are said to consume incredible quantities of wine on these occasions, and in a fashion that would put to shame the drinking triumphs of Ireland, recorded by Sir Jonah Barrington, in days of old, when intoxication was the standard of spirit. The drinking-vessel is a cow's horn, of considerable length, and the point of honour is to drain it at a draught. The brethren and convivial rivals of the Georgians in the neighbouring provinces of Imeretia and Mingrelia, instead of a horn, use a delicately-hollowed globe of walnut tree, with a long narrow tube at the orifice. It holds fully a pint, and like its companion, the horn, the contents are consumed at a single gulp. How these globes are hollowed is as great a marvel as the construction of the ingenious Chinese puzzle of ball within ball.
[...]
Traveling in Georgia is neither luxurious nor commodious, still it immensely surpasses all our experience of Southern Russia, particularly in the Mahommedan [Muslim] portion of the province. If horses were scarce at the post-houses, chickens and lambs, yoghourt and kymak, those savoury preparations from milk so cherished all over Asia, were abundant. The invasive hordes of the post-houses, too, we heard, were less numerous, ferocious, and bloodthirsty, but we pressed on without stop or stay through a pretty country with groves of oak-trees scattered about, which afforded food for enormous droves of swine, in whose flesh the Georgians take special delight. When we arrived at the high mountains near the lake Gookcha, we left our carriage and walked up the pass. On reaching the summit of this high range, which forms the limit of Georgia proper, we had a noble prospect. On the left, at our feet, lay the beautiful lake of Sevan, the first sheet of water we had seen on this journey; before us were spread Armenia and the plains of Erivan, expanding far to the south; while on the right, dark, towering, and frowning, lay the Karadagh, the Black Mountains, beyond Kars, stretching towards the Black Sea. At this interesting spot the postmaster had hospitably resolved not to confine our gratification to the pleasure of sight, and had prepared for us a most notable breakfast; at which we reveled on strawberry jam, made fresh from the fruit on the mountains, and the far-famed salmon trout, just out of the lake. Long after dark, at the conclusion of a toilsome journey over a detestable road, we reached Erivan....
[After visiting Armenia and spending time in Persia, Sheil and his wife travelled through eastern Ottoman Empire on his way to Istanbul. Along the way he encountered the Laz people]
The Turk of Trebizond is a very different person from the genuine Osmanli. The distinction is so visible and so great, as to create a strong belief of his being a Greek in disguise—the descendant, in short, of the old Greek population. Though affecting to be real Osmanlis, that is, the offspring of the Turkish invaders, collected together by the house of Osman, they are by the latter called Laz, that being the name of the population between Trebizond, Batoon, and Gooriel. I am informed that the Laz are probably allied in race with the Mingrelians and Imeretians, to whom they are said to bear a resemblance in dialect.
Among the real Turks their reputation is low, to be called a Laz being held as a term of reproach equivalent to an imputation of a want of faith, honour, or religion. A Laz, as a Turkish proverb says, will at any time " kill a man for an onion." There cannot be a greater contrast than that between the "Trebizanli" Laz, or Greek, and the lazy fanatic Turk of Erzeroom, laden with conceit and ignorance. The native of Trebizond is said to be full of activity and energy; he is cheerful and lively; unlike everything Turkish, he puts his gun on his shoulder and trudges over the mountains in quest of game. Still more curious and un-Turkish, you meet him on Friday with a party of his comrades, sauntering amid the beautiful environs of his native city, accompanied by a fiddler and singer, with whom he does not disdain to join in chorus. It is suspected that on these occasions the merrymakers are supported by something which gives inspiration to the fiddle and song.
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