John Buchan Telfer - The Crimea and Transcaucasia (1876)

John Buchan Telfer (1831-1907) was British author who had previously served in the Royal Navy. As the Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he had traveled widely and had spent several years in the Russian Empire in the 1870s. On one of his journeys he ventured into South Caucasus, visiting Georgia and Armenia. His account was published in two volumes in 1876. 

It was a dark morning and heavy clouds were gathering from the west, as we started from Ozourghety  [Ozurgeti] in a pereclodnaya at 2 A.M. This early stir was a necessity, for I was anxious to reach Samtredy [Samtredia] in time to meet the train from Poti to Tiflis. Our horses were fresh, and the clatter of their hoofs echoed again as they cantered over the hard stones in the now silent street of bazaars, and we soon cleared the little town, the dogs saluting us with savage barks from the courts in their keeping.

After crossing the Natonyeba [Natonebi], we ascended the Nasykyryla pass, by the side of a ravine at the bottom of which is the Bah'by, and after fording some of the tributaries of the Soupsa, stopped at Nagomary to change horses. A great fair is held here annually on July 20, at which the entire population of Gouria may be said to assemble, for people flock to it from all parts to lay in their yearly supplies of stuffs, hardware, crockery, cattle, &c, there being no tradesmen in Gouria, and few shops, and this fair becomes the only mart in the province. "You would see what fine cows and beautiful women we have,' said the yemstchyck winking, 'were you to come to our fair.'

In the broad valley of Pasoutchy was the first herd of cattle we had yet seen, and the khourma (Diospyrus lotus), a kind of date plum, was growing luxuriantly; it is largely imported into Russia as a dry fruit, and a favourite spirit is made of it; maize was also growing, but there was a general appearance of abandonment and neglect. The tower seen on the right of the road, is all that remains of the residence of the erystav Mihail of the family of the Gouriel, who was assassinated a few years ago by his own peasantry, for oppressive practices. At Tchynataoury, where we again changed horses, was the house and farm of the erystav David (Gouriel), and from this point the road ascends the well-wooded Pyatzwan, the enchanting scenery being enlivened by frequent falls of water and mountain streams, which find their way into the beautiful valley through which flows the Hebytz-tzkalys; on the opposite side of this valley is the Monastery of Gamatchnebouly, a favourite pilgrimage of the poverty-stricken mountaineers, who have few churches at which they can assemble. But what shall I say of the indigence of the peasantry in these highlands; of their tatters and scared looks as they flew off the road and hid themselves in the wood at our approach- not the males, but the females? And yet, if report be true, there are not many Lucretias in Gouria

. . . where, to love inclined,

Each swain is blest, for every maid is kind.

The women in Gouria, to judge by the few we had the opportunity of seeing, are decidedly interesting; there is nothing characteristic in their costume, with the exception of the cotton shirt, which, drawn in at the waist, is worn in such a manner as to display to the utmost the contour of their charms.

We changed horses for the third time at Hebytzheby, a snug little village by the Hebytz-tzkalys on the southern slope of the Sodjavah', from the summit of which we enjoyed a most extensive view of the plains, and of the windings of the Rion. We were in a vine country, but none of the wine we called for was at all drinkable. On reaching the plain, we crossed the Rion, at the village of Orpyry, on board a barge propelled with paddle-wheels worked by hand. We had no small difficulty in pushing our way through the crowded streets where a fair was going on, for the goods were spread out on carpets on the ground, leaving barely sufficient space for a vehicle to pass; there was no shouting, no cries, no haggling, for men and women moved about lazily and noiselessly. Wools, cottons, and most of the fabrics offered for sale were of Russian manufacture; leather work, cutlery, and pottery were native. A few versts farther, and we were at Samtredy, in ample time for the train.

The Rion is crossed for the last time just before reaching the Kouta'fs railway station, and beyond Kvyryly the railway skirts the Tzheretely, on the banks of which is Byelagory, in the midst of wooded hills occasionally relieved by rich and bounteous pastures. The pass and rock of Byelagory offer some striking points, and as the traveller is borne along, he will notice the sharpness of the curves in the line of rails, many .being at a radius of eight chains.

In this neighbourhood are the remains of numberless churches and castles that crown the peaks and summits, the latter reminding one of the schlcesser on the Rhine. The country people attribute to the great Queen Thamar the foundation of all the sacred edifices, and to the Genoese the erection of the fortresses, a ready method of clearing up all doubts as to their origin. The motive for the existence of so many churches, assigned in his quaint work by [Jean] Chardin, a traveller of the seventeenth century, is likely to be the correct one. "The Georgians, like the other Christians by whom they are bounded on the north and west, follow the strange custom of building the greater number of their churches on the tops of mountains in remote and inaccessible places. They are looked at and reverenced at the distance of three or four leagues, but they are seldom visited; indeed it is very certain that but few are opened even once in ten years. They are erected, and then abandoned to the elements and to the fowls of the air. I was never able to learn the reason for this foolish practice, all those of whom I inquired having ever made the same silly reply: "It is the custom." The Georgians are advised that whatever the nature of their transgressions, they ensure remission by building a small church. For my part, I believe that they erect them in such inaccessible places, to avoid the expense of decorating and endowing them."

On reaching Bejatouban we were transferred to a diligence, the working over the pass of Souram being suppressed for a time. The post-road keeps the railway pretty well in sight as it passes through the defile, on to the plateau, and down to Souram. 

The railroad from Poti to Tiflis owes its existence to British capital and enterprise. The British engineers who surveyed the track recommended the boring of a tunnel through the hill; but the Russians shrank from so heavy an undertaking, and at a considerably less cost the railway was made to climb up one side, and run down the other, by gradients of 1 ft. in 22 ft. over a distance of about eight miles, throwing even the Bhore Ghaut into the shade as a matter of skill in engineering.

The station at Souram, a small and insignificant village inhabited by Armenians, was the temporary terminus, but accommodation for travellers was shamefully neglected. We had three hours to wait for the departure of the train, and improved the occasion by walking to the old fortress picturesquely situated on an eminence; a portion only of the walls, which are of considerable thickness and strength, are left standing on their solid foundation of rock. This fortress dates from the reign of Vakhtang, king of Georgia, 446-499, surnamed Gourgasal, 'wolf-lion,' from his habit of wearing a helmet of gold, having a wolf in front and a lion behind. It was restored and occupied by a Persian garrison in 1634, on the accession of Rustam to the throne.

At 6 P.M. the train proceeded through broad valleys increasing in sterility to the narrower valley of the Kour. As is the practice in Russia, the train made unnecessarily long halts at each station, and it was well-nigh midnight when we reached Tiflis. The terminus is fully two miles from the city, but good carriages are in waiting, and the traveller may be certain of being rendered every assistance by the polyglot guards, who are always very civil.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Les Six Voyages... (1676) - Part 2

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605 – 1689) was a French gem merchant and traveler, who had made six voyages to Persia and India between the years 1630 and 1668. In 1675, Tavernier, at the behest of his patron Louis XIV, published his famous travelogue "Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier" (1676) which was translated into English in 1678 and excerpted here.

Mengrelia [Western Georgia] extends from a Chain of Mountains, that separates it from [eastern] Georgia to the Black Sea, and is now divided into three Provinces, every one of which has their King. The first is called the Province of lmarete [Imereti], or Bassa-Shiouk [Baschi Achouk, Ottoman name for Imeretians], the king whereof pretends to a superiority over both the other, which is the reason they are often at War, and that with so much cruelty, that when they have taken any prisoners of either side, they sell them into Turkey. They are so accustomed to sell one another in this Country, that if a man or his wife have any occasion for money, they will go and sell one of their Children, and many times they will exchange a Child for Ribands [ribbons] or other Toyes at the Mercers [merchants'] Shops. 

The second Province is that of Mengrelia, and the ruler of this Province is called the King of Dadian. 

The third is the Province of Guriel [Guria], the ruler of which Province is called the King of Guriel. 

The Province of Mengrelia was formerly subject to the King of Bassa-Shiouk, who sent thither a Governour, which is called in their language Dadian. One of those Govemours being a person of wit and courage, gained so far upon the affection of the People, that they chose him for their King. 

The chief of the Province of Guriel, seeing how the Dadian had obtained the Kingdom, following the example of Mengrelia, shook off the Yoke of the King of Bassa-Shiouk, and chose another King among themselves, who keeps his Soveraignty to this day, by the support of the Grand Signor [Ottoman sultan]. For when the Dadian rebelled, he entered into an Alliance with the Grand Signor, and obliged himself to furnish him every year with such a certain quantity of Iron, upon condition that if the King of Bassa-Shiouk should wage war upon him, [the sultan] would furnish him with twenty thousand Horse[men]. Of which the Turk was very glad, finding thereby the Country of Mengrelia [western Georgia] divided, which being united, was able at any time to have disturbed him with an Army of fifty thousand Men. 

The King of Bassa-Shiouk [Imereti] coins money of the same size and weight with that of the King of Persia. But in regard it is not so fine metal as that of the King of Persia, he would have much a doe to make it pass in the trade between his Subjects and the Persians, which is very great, had he not found an expedient by putting the King of Persia's name upon the Coin as well as his own, which makes it pass without any difficulty. He would also put the Grand Signor's Name upon his Coin, but that the Turk coins none but small money, or Aspers, excepting excepting only some Ducatts which he coins in Cairo. The King of Bassa-Shiouk as well as the King of Teflis coins all sort of foreign money. 

These three Kings of Bassa-Shiouk [Imereti], Mengrelia and Guriel are Christians also. And when they go to war, all the Ecclesiastical Persons attend them; Arch-bishops and Bishops, Priests and Monks: not so much to fight as to encourage the Soldiers. 

Being at Constantinople the first time I travelled to Persia, I saw there an ambassador from the King of Mengrelia, whose behaviour gave all the Franks occasion of laughter. The Present which he made to the Grand Signor [the sultan] was in Iron and Steel, and a great number of Slaves. The first time of his Audience, he had a suite of over 200 Persons. But every day he sold two or three [persons] to defray his expenses, so that at his departure, he had none but his Secretary and two Vassals more left. He was a man of presence but no wit: and every time he went to visit the Grand Signor, he presumed to wear the white Bonnet which all the Franks wondered at; when they saw that the Grand Vizier winked at it. For should any other Christian have done so, he had been most certainly put to death, or constrain'd to turn Mahometan. By which it was apparent how much the Grand Signor valued the friendship of the King of Mengrelia, and how careful he is of offending those that are sent from his Court. He knew those People suffer no affronts, but upon the least word presently draw [their swords], besides that there is nothing to be got by provoking them. 

This ambassador going once upon a visit into the Country, returning home was caught in a storm, whereupon he pulled off his Boots and carried them under his Coat, choosing rather to go bare-foot to his lodging, than to spoil his Boots. 

Another time, it being the custom of all Catholic Ambassadors to go to Mass to the Covent of Grey Friars in Pera , upon St. Francis' Day, the Mengrelian ambassador after mass was done, coming out of the Church, and seeing several baubles which the peddlers expose in the cloister upon that day, bought a tin ring, two or three small looking-glasses, and a pipe, which he put in his mouth and went piping all the way in the street, as Children do coming from fairs. 

But to return to the matter, you must take notice that there are not only Iron Mines, but also Mines of Gold and Silver in two places five or fix days Journey from Teflis, the one called Souanet [Svaneti] and the other Obetet. But the mischief is, the people can hardly be got to work there  for fear the Earth should tumbledown and bury them in the Mine, as it has many times happened. There is also a Mine of Gold near to a place which is called Hardanoushe, and a Mine of Silver at Gunishe-Kone, five days journey from Erzurum, and as many from Trebizond. 

As for the people themselves, both Georgians and Mengrelians [western Georgians] never trouble themselves about the ignorance and viciousness of their Priests, or whether they be able to instruct them or no. The richest among them are they which are in the most credit, and absolutely give Laws to the poor. There are also some heads of the Church that assume such a jurisdiction over the people, as to sell them both to the Turks and Persians, and they choose out the handsomest children, both Boys and Girls, to get more money, by which authority also the great men of the Country enjoy married Women and Maids at their pleasure. They will choose out their Children for the Bishops while they are yet in their Cradles, and if the Prince be dissatisfied at it, all the clergy joins with him that makes the choice, and then together by the ears they go. In which skirmishes they will carry away whole villages, and sell all the poor people to the Turks and Persians. And indeed the custom of selling men and women is so common in that Country that a man may almost affirm it to be one of 

their main Trades. 

The Bishops dissolve Marriages when they please, and then Marry again after they have sold the first. If any of the Natives be not Married to his fancy, he takes another for such a time as he thinks fit, for which he pays her all the while as the Turks do. Very few of these people know what Baptism means. Only two or three days after the woman is brought to bed [gives birth], the Priest comes and brings a little oil, mumbles over a few Prayers, and then anoints the Mother and the Infant, which they believe to be the best Baptism in the World. In short they are a people of no Devotion at all, neither in their Ceremonies nor in their Prayers. But there are great number of Nunneries, where the young Maids apply themselves to their Studies, and after such an age, whether they stay in the Nunneries or betake 

themselves to the Service of any of the great Lords, they Confess, Baptize, Marry, and perform all other Ecclesiastical Functions, which I never knew practiced in any other part of the World. 

Edmund Spencer, "Turkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia" (1854)

Captain Edmund Spencer was a prolific British travel writer of the mid-nineteenth century. Between 1830 and 1850 he traveled widely in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia, publishing several travelogues. His first travel book was entitled “Sketches of Germany and the Germans, with a glance at Poland, Hungary, & Switzerland in 1834, 1835, and 1836, by an English resident of Germany” appeared in 1836. Spencer’s second great tour took him down the Danube from Vienna to Constantinople and the Black Sea where he visited the Caucasus; his travelogue “Travels in the western Caucasus, including a tour through Imeritia, Mingrelia, Turkey, Moldavia, Galicia, Silesia, and Moravia, in 1836” appeared in London in 1838. Spencer continued to travel for the new two decades, including an extensive voyage through the southern Balkans which he described in his two-volume “Travels in European Turkey, in 1850, through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace, Albania, and Epirus, with a visit to Greece and the Ionian Isles” (London 1851). In 1851 he revisited the Caucasus and spent several weeks traveling through North Caucasus and Western Georgia, publishing his accounts in "Turkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia (London, 1854).

Our visit to Redoubt-Kale [near present-day Poti] having been made during the great summer fair, we saw the town under the most favourable circumstances; it also afforded us an opportunity of seeing specimens of all the various races who inhabit the neighboring provinces. In addition to Mingrelians arid Immeretians, there were Georgians and Persians, Circassians, Lesghians, and Armenians, together with Jews, Turks, Tatars, and Turkomans,—a curious melange, each habited in their separate costume, and exhibiting in their features and manners their characteristic peculiarities.

While wandering through this vast assemblage of races, Prince Vorontsov [Mikhail Vorontsov, appointed commander-in-chief and viceroy of the Caucasus in 1844] kindly pointed out to me the different nationalities. There was the stately Georgian in his becoming costume—a blue cloth blouse with the sleeves open to the elbow, the whole neatly braided; wide shalwars [trousers] confined at the knees, and a high cap of black [Astrakhan] lamb-skin. In features he might be taken for an Armenian or a Persian: the only weapon he carried was a large poniard [dagger] with an ivory handle, stuck in a red silk sash. 

The Mingrelians and the Immeretians, in their costume and features, somewhat resembled the Circassians, except that they were much inferior in personal appearance, and [lacking] the bright sparkling eye and bold independence of manner which distinguish that people. These peasants were all well armed with poniard, pistols, and gun slung across the shoulder; and carried, hanging from the shoulder, the same species of black mantle, made from plaited goat's hair, as the Circassians are accustomed to use. 

But by far the most interesting among the assembled multitude, were the inhabitants of the higher Alps [Caucasus mountains], the Souanians [Svans] of Souanethia [Svanetia], a territory where the winter, it is said, lasts eight or nine months in the year. These gigantic mountaineers were all armed to the teeth, and looked as fierce and savage as if they had never before mingled among civilized men. Instead of the becoming blouse worn by their countrymen on the coast of Circassia, they were habited in long sheep-skin coats, ornamented in front with the usual red leather patron pocket of a Caucasian mountaineer, sheep-skin caps with the wool plaited in ringlets, while their bare legs were encased in a sort of sandal, made of untanned leather and fastened with thongs.

Besides these, there were several other tribes from the remote districts of the Caucasus equally interesting; and as they were all on friendly terms with the Russian government, they were allowed to purchase salt, tobacco, and powder, the latter however in small quantities. From the circumstance of the Mingrelians and Immeretians being allowed to retain their arms, we must infer that the power of Russia is not firmly established over these provinces, as the same privilege is not granted to her subjects of Georgia and Russian Armenia. At all events, the Russian soldier of the garrison may felicitate himself upon possessing one advantage over his comrades of all the other Russian forts we visited in the Caucasus, he has only a single enemy to contend with at Redout-Kale—marsh miasma.*

[The miasma theory held that diseases were caused by a miasma, a noxious form of "bad air" emanating from rotting organic matter]

In fact, the authority of Russia over these provinces, Mingrelia, Immeretia, and Gourial [Guria], is extremely precarious. She knows well that so long as she is at war with the inhabitants of Daghestan and the Western Caucasus, the slightest infringement upon the liberties of the people—for they are very tenacious of their freedom—would lead to a rebellion, and, it might be, endanger the loss of Georgia, a province which from its position is the key to all her Trans-Caucasian possessions. Hence she has not dared to introduce her usual complicated machinery of passports and fiscal laws, neither has she inundated the country with an army of officials to enforce the various harassing regulations, by means of which she knows so well how to enslave every people that has had the misfortune to fall under her rule. No doubt there would be a very different system pursued if she succeeded in subduing the untamed and untamable spirit of Daghestan and Circassia. We should then, as in old Russia, and in every other country where she has succeeded in establishing her power, behold the same elaborate system of despotism substituted for the mild rule of their patriarchal chiefs and elders, and every privilege the people now possess wrested from them, till they became, like the rest of the inert and spiritless mass over which she rules—a machine to be guided by the hand of a skilful engineer.

At present, these provinces are only valuable to Russia in a political point of view. So far from being a source of revenue, they are a constant drain upon the treasury, from the expense they entail upon the government in maintaining garrisons in so many military forts, and the large sums annually disbursed in the form of pensions, for the purpose of securing the allegiance of the various petty princes and elders, which they in their simplicity believe to be a tribute. The farce is even carried so far, that the princes of Mingrelia receive upwards of two thousand roubles a-year for permitting the Russians to establish themselves as a trading community at Redout-Kale! whereas Mingrelia, together with Georgia, was declared a province of Russia during the reign of the late Emperor Alexander; but it serves to mystify a half-civilized people, and prevents them from making common cause with their neighbours, the independent tribes of the mountain.

There is also a chain of sympathy in religion, which binds them to Russia, the majority of the inhabitants being members of the Oriental Church. But how far we can call a people Christian who still practice many of the rites of Paganism, such as the worship of ancient idols, and the sacrifice of animals as propitiatory offerings, is somewhat difficult to determine; and these customs are very general among the Mingrelians, the Immeretians, and the Georgians, particularly the inhabitants of the mountain districts of these provinces, many of whom openly profess Mahometanism [Islam], and every attempt to convert them to Christianity has hitherto failed. It is true they frequently attend the nearest church, get the silver rouble and the silver cross allowed them by the Russian government, submit to be baptized, then wander to another and repeat the ceremony, but they remain no less good Mussulmans [Muslims] or good Pagans, as the case may be.

The real fact is this, and we know it both from personal observation while traveling in these districts, and from the conversation of Russian officers: the power of Russia even in this, the most peaceable portion of her Trans-Caucasian possessions, is based on sand. The priests of the Greek Church, and the petty chieftains and elders, her pensioners, are no doubt by interest attached to her rule; but the people, one and all, detest it. Nay, it is by no means improbable, now that these provinces are on the very threshold of the theatre of war [The Crimean War, 1853-1856], that they will openly express their discontent and fly to arms, should the Turks on one side, and the warriors of Daghestan, the Lesghians, on the other, succeed in gaining a sure footing in these provinces.

The Mingrelians, Immeretians, and Georgians, all of the same race, each speaking a different dialect of the same language, have not forgotten the might and power of their ancestors, nor that, less than a century ago, they were ruled by chiefs who knew how to make their countries respected by their hereditary enemies, the Turks and Persians. Perhaps the Russians have not more implacable enemies in the Caucasus, than those tribes of the same race who inhabit the elevated districts of Georgia, Immeretia, and Mingrelia, nor any that harass the Russian troops more perseveringly on their route from Tiflis to Daghestan. At all events it is certain, that no traveller who is not recommended to their chieftains, can pass through the defiles and gorges of their country without being protected by an armed escort from fort to fort. This danger has increased of late years, in consequence of the civil wars in Turkey and Persia, which drove great numbers of outlawed Turks and Persians to seek a home in the Caucasus,—all enemies of Russia, and being for the most part men of the world, they have widely propagated their hatred and animosity among the inhabitants to the systematic enemy of the East.

Indeed, all the Russian officers we conversed with, who had served in the Caucasus, were of the same opinion, that no government, however powerful, enterprising and humane, could succeed in establishing its rule over a people who, in addition to the attachment they have ever displayed for the government of their native chiefs, and their own wild independence, consider no engagement binding with the stranger; since nearly every tribe in the Eastern Caucasus repeatedly gave in their adhesion to the Russian government, only to raise the standard of revolt on the first favourable opportunity, and massacre the garrison of the forts... Perhaps, of all the mountaineers who inhabit this part of the Caucasus, the most dangerous and the most difficult to subdue are those powerful tribes, the Suonians  [Svans] and the Ingushes. This very numerous and warlike people occupy the whole of the alpine and mountain districts, from Elbrous to the frontiers of Mingrelia and Immeretia. It is supposed they are the original inhabitants of the Caucasus, as all the early writers allude to them by name. The Russians have never been able to penetrate into the country they inhabit. Among the many romantic stories in circulation respecting them, it is said there are certain Eden-like districts in the interior, only known to this people, sheltered by the Alps from every harsh wind, where the cold of winter and the heat of summer are equally unknown. Nay, it is even reported that here was the home of our first parents, the gold and silver mines of the ancients, and a hundred other reports equally marvelous and romantic.

Frederick Arthur McKenzie - From Tokyo to Tiflis (1905)

Frederick Arthur McKenzie (1869–1931) was a Canadian correspondent who contributed to the Daily Mail as traveling correspondent in the Far East, covering the events of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905. After the war he decided to publish a book - "From Tokyo to Tiflis: Uncensored Letters from the War" - based on his war-time reports and spent several weeks in Tiflis gathering his writings and finalizing the manuscript. His stay in Georgia coincided with the Gurian Uprising of 1905, which described in one of his reports.

Trans-caucasia is a land of armed men, of hardy mountaineers, of brigandage and of frequent outrage. In few other places on earth is life held so cheap or taken so readily. Given a hot-blooded Oriental people, passionate and fully armed, and trouble must be frequent. In one or two places, it is true, such as Tiflis, the Government has enforced the non-display of weapons in public, but elsewhere every man carries his gun and daggers and revolver as a matter of course. While Russia rules outwardly, revolutionary committees exercise secret, but great power. Blackmail, thinly disguised under a political veil, is general. Many diverse peoples, hostile by race, religions and habits, maintain perpetual war, none the less keen or bitter or bloody because its outward display is limited by the presence of troops.

To Russia, Trans-Caucasia is of special importance as the road to the south, and as the stepping-off place for the great national schemes of advance against Turkey and Persia. Baku, with its enormous oil fields, is a constant source of wealth to the Government, and Batoum [Batum] is the shipping port for one portion of Asia. The country is a great mine, and even though its mineral treasures are as yet scarcely scratched, thriving ports and cities have sprung up in many parts. With settled government and firm administration, it would quickly become one of the richest provinces of Russia.

At present, however, the Caucasus shares with Finland and Poland the place of greatest anxiety in the near East for the Petersburg authorities. During the weeks I was there in the spring of 1905 the whole province was unsettled; every racial hate had been revived and blown to white heat, and every bitterness against Russia was finding expression. At Batoum and at Poti revolutionary strike committees had paralyzed work for weeks, threatening with death any who dared resist them. Right across the peninsula revolutionary committees exercised their secret powers unflinchingly.

It is difficult at first to understand the extent of the power of these revolutionary committees. They have one weapon to secure their will—murder of those who differ from them—and this weapon they use with the utmost freedom. While I was in Baku, two men were being tried for the murder of an Armenian merchant the previous summer. This was a case very typical of the country. The revolutionary committee had sent a representative to the merchant, demanding a hundred thousand roubles. He bluntly refused. They gave him three days to pay, but he went on with his work as usual and took no more notice of them. At the end of the third day he was shot while walking in the public garden of his city. Two men were arrested and brought to trial, but all Armenians said they were innocent. The committee had seen to it that the real assassin escaped.

The Armenian is largely at the bottom of the trouble in Trans-Caucasia. It is natural for the English Christian to sympathize with the Armenian Christian, who is so often the victim of Mohammedan oppression. But the almost unanimous opinion of Europeans in the Near East is against the Armenian. His very virtues make him disliked. He is clannish and thrifty, and a hard worker. To these qualities he adds others less amiable. He is the Jew of the East. He has the restless irritability of a poetical people, and often he does not lack the meaner qualities which are the inevitable outcome of centuries of oppression.

For some time the Caucasian Armenians were greatly favored by the Russian Government, but two or three years ago the then Governor-General altered his attitude. He became suspicious that they were using their church funds for political conspiracy. Cases of arms were bought with church monies, smuggled in the country by the Armenians, and concealed by church officials. 

The arms were intended for service against the Turks. The Government used this as an excuse to take control of the enormous church funds, and it now supervises their expenditure. This has made the Armenians, almost to a man, enemies of Russia. The revolutionary committees, which had for some time been busy fighting the Sultan, now turned their attention to Czardom.

The committees thought that they saw their opportunity in the defeats coming upon the Russian arms in the Far East. "Russia is finished," they said to one another bluntly. Then Russia took the opportunity of striking at them the most deadly of blows.

[…]

In [Georgia], the Government meanwhile had to deal with a strike of the peasants. Over two years ago the Gourians [Gurians], a large tribe on the western border of the Caucasus, objected to the terms of land tenure and refused to till the soil. Their land is mostly used for the cultivation of maize, and the rent paid took the form of a certain quantity of grain each year. The peasants claimed, apparently with some justice, that in bad seasons they did not raise enough corn even to pay their rent. They had other causes of dispute also. The Georgian tribes in Trans-Caucasia do not take kindly to government. Their life is patriarchal, and they prefer the home rule of the village elders; particularly they object to outside taxation. For centuries they maintained constant war with the rest of the world, and even to-day, when a railway is run through their country and Russian military roads make the movements of outsiders easy, they are still suspicious of outer peoples.

They adopted the readiest means of protesting against the terms of their tenancy. They simply refused to till the land until they obtained the concessions they wanted. In the end, the landlords gave way and substituted a greatly reduced rent in the form of money for the old corn exactions. But meanwhile the Gourians having discovered their own power, went further. They decided that they would do without Russian government altogether.

"What do the Russians tax us for ?" the people asked. "They say that they build our roads; they do not. They eat our money and give us nothing in return. We will make our own roads." 

Accordingly they started to make their own roads and are still doing so. When a public meeting is called now, the ostensible purpose is to repair the roads, affording the people a good excuse if they are come down on by the soldiers when gathered together. The most arbitrary captain dare not shoot a peasant for mending the path near his house.

The people refused to take their cases to the Russian courts; they appointed councils of their own elders, to whom they refer all their quarrels. Some landlords and others, it is true, attempted to appeal to the Russian authorities. To stop trouble, they were shot or stabbed. Some priests were suspected of betraying the plans of the people to the Russians, and even of revealing the secrets of the confessional. They, too, were killed.

One surprising feature of the outbreak has been that the rebel districts have for the time become safer for an ordinary traveller than they ever were before. Roads have been better kept, and even brigandage—usually regarded as a comparatively innocent relaxation—has been sternly punished by the irregular authorities.

Thus recently a Greek merchant was traveling through the disturbed country, when his carriage was held up by two men, who took 1,500 roubles (about £170) from him. The merchant complained to the village elders. They formed a committee of inquiry, and on the following Sunday morning two houses were surrounded by an armed crowd, and their owners dragged out and made, under threat of death, to confess their guilt. A search in the roofs of the houses revealed most of the stolen money.

The Sunday was a feast day, when everyone goes to church. While service was in progress, the robbers were brought to the church porch, stripped, tied to the shafts of the cab they had held up, and had two horses harnessed in front of them. The cabby got on his box-seat, and, as the villagers started emerging from church, crack went the whip over the men's shoulders, and off they had to go, shouting as they went (for this was part of their punishment), "We stole the money. We stole the money.”

They had to tear their hardest to keep up with the horses and save themselves from being dragged along the ground. The slightest sign of slackening brought the cabby's whip on them. Finally they were released, more dead than alive, the money was restored to the merchant, and they were further fined two hundred roubles each for the good of the community. Brigandage is now at a discount in that village.

In another case two men stole a cow. They, too, were brought outside the church on a feast day, and were tied back to back, and then firmly secured to the back of the cow they had stolen. Their punishment was to stand thus, helplessly trussed, and sing in chorus. "We stole the cow."

The people came out of church, firing pistols in the air, as usual, to celebrate the feast, and jeering at the cow thieves. Then the cow, unaccustomed to powder, and startled by the shots, tore off at a mad gallop. Before it could be stopped the men were kicked and knocked almost out of shape.

The Russian authorities are very anxious not to proceed to extremities. A considerable force has been gathered in the rebel district under the command of a general [Alikhanov-Avarskii] famous as a crusher of revolt, but for the time the troops are held back, and commissioners from Tiflis are going among the people, seeking to learn their grievances and to discover methods of conciliation.