Ascott Robert Hope Moncrieff was the Scottish author who specialized in writing general history books. In 1907 he published The World of Today, a multivolume work that explored world's cultures based on existing travel literature. When it came to Georgia, Moncrieff was clearly left unimpressed:
The Georgians, every second man of whom is said to claim the title prince, are a lazy, swaggering people, who delight in wearing gay flowing garments and richly-ornamented weapons, a striking feature of native costume being a row of cartridge-cases sewn on to the breast of their tunics. This is worn even by little boys, whose fathers strut bristling in silver-mounted arms; and in the wilder mountain glens, men may be seen arrayed in suits of chain-armour, with round bucklers, such as have served them against ruder weapons than the guns now in every Georgian's hand. Among the Asiatics, the most thriving both in business and agriculture are the Armenians. Travellers have noted that the neatest and most prosperous-looking villages here turn out to belong to Russian or German dissenters, who have crossed the Caucasus to seek such freedom of worship as our Pilgrim Fathers found beyond the Atlantic Other Russian inhabitants are chiefly soldiers and officials, little more ready to make their permanent home here than we in India; so that the Transcaucasian side of the isthmus is still very Asian in its civilization; and as yet the main benefit of European rule is greater security for life and property, under which industrial development grows up somewhat slowly.
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Georgia has been celebrated for the doll-like beauty of its women, yet a recent English traveller, who, according to other accounts, must have been hard to please, complains that, in more than a week's stay, he did not see a single pretty face among the people of Tiflis. There must at least be a great variety among its population of over 100,000, since we learn that newspapers are printed here in Russian, Georgian, Armenian, and Persian; and in its bazaars may be seen a lively swarm of Turks, Tartars, Turcomans, Greeks, Albanians, Jews, Arabs, Negroes, and Parsees, mingled among the country-folk in their gay dress. The city's own reputation for picturesqueness has by some visitors been judged an exaggeration; but it certainly occupies a fine situation on broken ground at the foot of snow-topped mountains. As in most Eastern cities dominated by Europeans, there is a great contrast between the old quarter of dirty crooked lanes winding among poor buildings of stone or mud, and the modern part with its broad boulevards, open squares, large public buildings, tramways, cafes, and notably the barracks of the Russian army that has its head-quarters at Tiflis. A striking prospect of the city is commanded from the ruined castle on a bold height, beneath which has been laid out a botanical garden. Other lions are the ancient Byzantine cathedral; a new Greek cathedral, the most striking structure of the place; the gorgeously decorated palace of the viceroy; the remarkable museum, with its local collections; and the "temple of fame" preserving trophies and memorials of Russia's valour in a difficult conquest. This is a place of considerable trade, and manufactures of cotton, silk, leather, weapons, silver ware, etc. As a token, perhaps, of European influence, Mr. Freshfield observed that the shopkeepers in the bazaar showed an eagerness to attract customers, unlike the air of dignified and sleepy indifference commonly shown by Oriental merchants. Among the city's attractions are hot sulphur baths, which may some day make it a European resort. Already, indeed, it attracts a sprinkling of tourists, able to take a peep into Asia without much hardship, as Tiflis stands on the railway traversing this province from the Black Sea to the Caspian.
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