Where else except in London will you see clever driving? Is not England the only country where you can trust your coachman to shave his corners and keep his team in hand? With four horses abreast the process is perhaps not easy, especially down a fairly steep incline. We were pursued by a landau which contained some Russian officers who had been spectators of our photographic and hypsometrical operations on the summit of the pass; our driver became inspired with the spirit of rivalry, and within a few minutes the trot had developed into a canter, the canter into a headlong career. On the left hand a deep abyss, on the right a mossy bank, and the post of danger occupied by our plump little dragoman who sat on the left-hand box seat! The carriage grazed the bank and, before we had time to pull the Armenian to us, struck and overturned. No damage to the horses or to the rest of the company, but the unfortunate dragoman, moaning and sobbing on the road! Happily his contusions were not serious, and a draught of brandy almost restored him to the possession of himself. Assisted by our kind acquaintances, who were the unwitting cause of the disaster and who had hurried to the scene, we conveyed him down the slope to where a gay picnic party were regaling themselves with cakes and tea and a variety of strong liqueurs. At once the ladies busied themselves with the bruised and dust-covered youth, whose numbed senses quickly revived under their care. But the incident delayed us, and it was night before we arrived at the outskirts of Abastuman, situated in the pine woods some ten miles south of the pass, at an elevation of 4278 feet. We were tempted to pitch our tents above the village, on the banks of a pleasant stream; but the darkness as well as the lateness of the hour decided us to have recourse to a crowded hotel.

We were again in the midst of wealth and luxury—an oasis strangely incongruous with the solemn character with which these vast and lonely landscapes are impressed. The strains of music floated on the air; a dance was proceeding, to which after a hurried meal my cousin and myself repaired. All that was most brilliant in the official world of the Caucasus was gathered in the bright ball-room; and as we made our way there through the garden we met a group of returning guests gathered about a slender and youthful figure, to whom all appeared to defer. It was the Grand Duke George of Russia, since Tsarevich, who was residing in this lofty station alike in winter as in summer for the benefit of his health. In the afternoon of the following day, which was devoted to work and to preparations, came a message from His Imperial Highness inviting us to mid-day dinner; so we deferred our start from early morning to a later hour. His villa was situated just above the street of pleasure-houses among the fir trees which clothe the valley from trough to ridge; and on the opposite side of the road the slope had been converted into a park, which contained living specimens of the big game of the Caucasian wilds. The dinner was al fresco in the garden of the villa; the Grand Duke welcomed us in perfect English and placed my cousin on his right and myself on his left hand. Opposite me and on my cousin’s right sat the Duke of Oldenburg, a practised sportsman and a charming personality, whose lively humour made the talk flow. On my left I had a graver but extremely well-informed gentleman whose conversation impressed me, but whose name I forgot to record. M. Asbeleff of the suite of His Highness was also of the party, and most kindly provided us with introductions which were of great service to us at a later stage of our journey. Quite a respectable number of guests were gathered round the circular table, the majority clad in the white cotton tunics which are the summer uniform of the official class.

A purÉe or thick soup was served, which I thought delicious, but which brought a twinkle from the playful eye of the Duke. As each successive dish of this dinner À la Russe made its appearance a smile came from across the table, or “Isn’t it nasty?” or some even less mildly deprecating words. I ventured to demur to his good-humoured criticism and to submit that, if the French alone possessed the art of cooking, the Russians succeeded, where the English failed signally, in making things taste nice. The champagne came in for a particular share of attention, having been produced by the Duke from his vineyards at Kutais. My cousin let out the secret that we had already made its acquaintance: that we had visited his cellars and had been greatly interested in his enterprise, especially on the evening at the hut of Zikari, when we had regaled ourselves with a bottle of his sparkling wine. He now insisted on our taking a little case with us, and promised it should be dry to suit what he said he knew to be our taste. My companion on the left discussed the objects of our journey, and was of opinion that we might succeed in reaching the slopes of Ararat before the first snows commenced. I told him that we were also anxious to study the condition of the country, and the conversation turned upon the limitations which he said were imposed in India upon foreigners travelling with similar aims. Can there be anything more fatuous than such restrictions? We both agreed that it was perfectly possible to guard against political intriguers and at the same time to leave bona-fide travellers free. The Grand Duke spoke English like an Englishman, and you could not have a more amiable host. We remarked that his features resembled those of his cousin, the Duke of York, of whom a portrait was placed on his writing-table together with the photographs of other members of our Royal House.

Two four-horsed posting carriages had been prepared for the drive to Akhaltsykh, distant 16½ miles. By four o’clock we had rejoined the rest of our party and were leaving behind us the pleasant station of Abastuman. We followed the tripping stream down the narrow valley, the rocky and beetling sides studded with firs from foot to summit; and from among them a ruined castle, ascribed as usual to Queen Thamar, frowned out upon the passage which it controls. But we had not gone far before a complete change came over the landscape; the valley opened, distant prospects were disclosed. Before us lay the scenery which is typical of Armenia and upon which our eyes had rested from the summit of the Zikar Pass. Nature is seldom abrupt in her processes; a transitional character invests the first slopes of the southern watershed; the narrow belt of pine-clad ridges interrupts the contrast between the luscious forests which cover the range on the side of the Black Sea littoral and the barren highlands through which the upper waters of the Kur descend. We had issued from those recesses, and around us in a wide circle were unfolded the Armenian plains. The view ranged over an open country, for the most part bare of vegetation, and featured by a succession of convexities in the friable surface, from the foreground of hummock and hill to the sweeping outlines of the higher masses, changing colour and complexion with every change in the sky.

The ground was crumbling with excessive dryness; the soil is rich, and would no doubt yield crops of great value were it cultivated on a liberal scale. Yet all the cultivation we could see was of the nature of little patches of yellow stubble or lightly ploughed land. It was evident that the primitive methods of the East had not been superseded, and that agriculture still partook of the precarious character which is the outcome of centuries of political disturbance—the peasant uncertain of reaping what he has sown. Stony tracts interrupted these plots of reclamation, but in general the surface was apt for the plough. The springs of life had been exhausted by the drought of an Eastern summer; the fertile earth was bare as water, and transparent tints of pink and ochre invested the landscape far and wide. A spirit of vastness and loneliness breathed over the scene; the air was clear and crisp and recalled the bracing climate of the Persian tablelands.

Such characteristics were strange to some among our party, for only my cousin and myself knew the interior of Asia and recognised in the note which was now for the first time sounded the commencement of a familiar theme. We pursued our way in silence, each absorbed by his own reflections and all responsive to the same spell. Through the bleak landscape wound the little river and stretched the white line of the road. Here and there on the margin of the water or beyond the irregular border of the pebble-strewn bed a little orchard or a patch of garden planted with potatoes, formed a spot of verdure contrasting with the hues around.1

Where were the villages? For it seemed that there must be inhabitants who had gathered this scanty harvest and ploughed the surface of the darker soil. They select the slope of a hill or the rise of an undulation; the door and front of their dwellings are alone visible, the back is caverned into the shelving ground; you must pass close to such a settlement and by daylight to notice the incidence of a human element in the scene. We came upon four villages of this pattern before the mid-way station was reached. They were peopled by Tartars, who were occupied in threshing and winnowing the season’s corn. The husks were flying in the air and the bright cottons of men and women fluttered in the breeze.

Benara, the posting-house which supplied us with fresh horses, is situated close to the bank of the stream, at no great distance above the point where it joins the Koblian Chai, a river which collects the drainage of the extreme north-western angle of the tableland. A little below this junction the united waters receive a further affluent, known as the Poskhov Chai, which gathers the streams from south-west and south-east. Even at this season the three combined form a river of fair size, flowing through the plain on an easterly course in a bed of many channels, and joining the Kur after passing through the town of Akhaltsykh. This river is usually called the Akhaltsykh Chai.

Our road followed its course, taking an abrupt bend eastwards and still faithful to the left bank. Some hillocks closed the view on the north for a short space; then they flattened, and in that direction the great plain rolled around us, bounded in the distance by hummock hills. At intervals we caught a glimpse of the pine-clad ridges of the border range, standing up on the horizon in the east. Behind us the long-drawn outlines and bare slopes of the mountains of the tableland, and towards the south the ground rising from the right bank of the river to the summit-line of a mountain mass of this character which has the hummock formation throughout.

Massed battalions of Russian soldiers, it seemed a whole army corps, were drawn up on the plain. We were passing a permanent camp with pavilions and stationary cannon, and for some distance the ground was dotted with white tents. A review was proceeding, and the dark uniforms of the troops gave their columns the appearance of a series of black blocks. A hymn was being sung; the stately music swelled over the hushed scene.

What a contrast between the landscape and such accidental incidents, the Russian road, the Russian camp! On the road little piles of stones heaped at regular intervals; but the country without a fence, without boundaries or divisions, a mere expanse of rolling soil.

The first town or larger village that we saw was Suflis, rising among orchards from the right bank. It is backed by the bleak mountain mass which the river skirts; the flat roofs, ranged in tiers, were scarcely distinguishable from the shelving ground, but the vertical lines of several minarets were seen from afar. Could you be shown a more typical example of a tumble-down Eastern township? Yet you are on the threshold of an important fortress and provincial centre where modern appliances are in vogue.... Suflis passed, we approached more closely to the river; the mass on our right broke off in cliffs to the margin of the water, while on our left hand a low ridge, which had the appearance of an outcrop of volcanic rock, stepped up to the border of the stream. The road followed down the defile, skirting huge boulders and overtowered by bold crags; until the heights on our left were crowned with masonry, partly ruinous; and before us, across the river, where the gorge opened, the cherry-coloured roofing of the modern town of Akhaltsykh was outspread among gardens on the level ground. A little further down we crossed a substantial bridge, and, without entering the town, pitched our tents on the sand of the river-bed. It was nearly seven o’clock, and night had fallen before our camping operations were complete.

From the Olympian eminence of the Grand Duke’s circle at Abastuman and from the steps of the Imperial throne, we came near to being hurled forth at Akhaltsykh into the abyss of a Russian prison. The gods must surely weep at the sorry manner in which their human ministers interpret their laws. Day broke without any shadow of presentiment—a fresh and breezy morning, the river rippling before us, and on the opposite bank the ancient fortress edging the steep crags and outlined on the luminous sky. The delicious sleep beneath a tent was followed by an early bathe; the town was silent, but, as we made our way up the margin of the current, a little village was discovered, of which the feminine occupants were already descending the slope with their many-shaped water-jars and divesting themselves of their loose cottons to splash on the brink of the stream. A little later we passed their hovels and recognised them as Armenians, and admired the beauty of one among them, now busy with the routine of her household, who with her arched eyebrows, aquiline nose, massive forehead, and coal-black tresses reminded us of Biblical heroines. The fascination of travel consists in its many-coloured contrasts; nothing ruffled the composure of our mood of detachment as we left this peaceful scene to explore a fresh hive of human beings with the easy confidence of men to whom the land belongs. Our first visit was as usual to the civil governor; he was to conduct us to the hive, remark upon the peculiar qualities of the honey, and deferentially withdraw while we pursued our own investigations into the mysteries of insect life. If our attitude could be convicted of any element of such fatuous vanity, the illusion was quickly and rudely dispelled. We were taken to a mean structure on the southern outskirts of the town, which resembled wooden boxes placed one above another, with broad wooden verandahs running round. These balconies were indeed the distinguishing feature; and, when we observed the groups of ill-miened loafers who loitered within them, it was hard to believe that we were anywhere else but in Turkey visiting a pasha at the Serai. After some palaver with the menials, who were not disposed to excessive courtesy, it transpired that the governor had left that very morning on a visit to Abastuman. We asked to see his deputy, and were ushered into the presence of a broad-shouldered official whose little eyes and cast of face were essentially Russian, and who did not receive us with any excessive show of warmth. Such is the manner of deputies all the world over—but our disappointment turned to surprise when who should enter the apartment but Wesson, closely escorted by a formidable individual whom we at once recognised as a commissary of police!

May I introduce the reader to Ivan Kuyumjibashoff, a personality no less alarming than his name (Fig. 12), and may I take this early opportunity to place him on his guard against the fallacy that the Armenians are not a martial race? For this man was a pure Armenian, in spite of the Russian termination of -off instead of -ean. Erzerum was his native city; his family had emigrated to Russia, and during the last war against the Turks Ivan had gained the cross of honour for personal bravery in the field. At his side hung a sword of which the scabbard and hilt were adorned with chased silver; the blade was his special pride, being of ancient Khorasan workmanship, a trophy from the Kurds. His features inspired fear; his skin of leather was the result of exposure; but we had not yet learnt that, like all true warriors who are not barbarians, the lion’s fierceness was tempered by the meekness of the lamb. A cloud settled over the face of the deputy as the massive fist turned the handle of the door and the heavy tread fell on the bare boards. Arrived at his side, Ivan whispered something in his ear, and I ventured to ask what might be the business of this man. The official replied that he was the emissary of Captain Taranoffsky, the chief of the so-called gendarmerie, and that he had been sent to conduct us to the presence of his superior, who would personally explain the purport of his summons. I enquired whether Colonel Alander was not the governor of Akhaltsykh, and his office the seat of supreme power; I was answered that there was another and separate jurisdiction which the governor did not control. The deputy added with an agreeable humour that, should we be thrown into prison, he would be powerless to take us out. Nothing therefore to be done but to follow Ivan; and would that his master had been as capable as himself!

In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians, who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of ancient culture and high natural capacity; neither the instinct nor the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior, who is the instrument of a system of government rather than a born ruler, and who in general is lacking in those attributes of pliancy and individual initiative which it is the tendency of rigid bureaucracies to destroy. Moreover the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his system, like a child to whom his lessons are new; and, when you see him at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself how it has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such wooden figures as these. There are of course notable exceptions to this general statement, which resumes one’s experience of the subordinate officers rather than of those who are highest placed. Taranoffsky was about as bad a specimen of his class as it has been my misfortune to meet. A short man of portly figure, fat red face, and little eyes, he had all the self-assertion which so often accompanies small stature, all the unfriendliness which seems the almost necessary outcome of a lack of physical grace. I at once perceived all the elements of an unpleasant situation; nor were my apprehensions disproved by the result. We were taken to a hotel, deprived of our papers and letters, and placed under close police surveillance pending a decision as to our future fate. The warmest pass of arms was that which took place over our photographic negatives, which our persecutor peremptorily required. I represented that many of the films were as yet undeveloped, and was absolute in my refusal to give them up. On the other hand I expressed myself anxious that he should see them developed in his presence, for which purpose I begged him to prepare a dark room. I forget whether he accepted this tempting proposal; the negatives remained intact. Permission was given us to drive under escort to the monastery of Safar, and the arrival that night or the following morning of Colonel Alander appeared to alleviate the disfavour with which we were viewed. Not that these two imperia work harmoniously together! How can it be expected that they should? The political police are particularly active in fortress towns such as Kars or Akhaltsykh; but I understood from Ivan that they are pretty widely distributed over the country, and that their functions extend to tracking down Socialists and Nihilists, and in general to the diffusion of alarm and annoyance far and wide. “How ugly is man!” has exclaimed a French novelist; indeed how ugly at such moments he appears.

If the morning was consumed by these unforeseen complications, the afternoon held in store for the harried travellers a further contrast and a rich reward. The monastery of Safar is situated a few miles2 south-east of Akhaltsykh on the lofty slopes of a volcanic ridge; the drive thither displays the landscape of the town and surrounding country, and the goal is a group of buildings, of which the principal church is a gem of architecture, instinct with the graces that adorn and elevate life. For awhile we followed down the right bank of the river along the road toward Akhalkalaki and the east; then, almost reversing direction, turned up a side track on the right hand, which conducted us, always rising, across the bleak undulations at the back of the modern town. Here and there the soil had been sown and was yellow with stubble, or lay exposed in patches of plough; but cultivation was only partial, and for many a mile not a village could be discerned. Far and near, the surface of the earth was of a hummocky nature, like sands modelled by children’s spades.

After jolting along this track for some distance, we again struck a metalled road. It winds along the side of the ridge upon which Safar is situated, and overlooks a deep ravine. The slope of the ridge is clothed in places by a scanty growth of bush and dotted by low trees; but the ravine and opposite hillside are bare and stony, and the landscape is bleak and wild in the extreme. The only signs of life and movement proceeded from a village of which the tenements were built into that opposite slope. The peasants in their gay cottons were threshing the season’s harvest, and, as we returned, we saw them transporting it in little carts, drawn by eight oxen apiece, from the fields, where it had been left since the end of June in convenient places, up to the village threshing-floors. We were surprised at the evident prosperity of the occupants of this Georgian settlement; what could be more quaint than women with white gloves and parasols who dwelt in such hovels as those? We met several such groups on the road and about the monastery, which was the goal of their afternoon’s walk; several families also, who had come from afar, were encamped at Safar, at once a pilgrimage and a pleasant residence during the summer months.

A similar practice no doubt prevailed with the powerful governors of Upper Georgia, of that remote and extensive province of Semo-Karthli which comprised the uppermost valleys of the Kur and Chorokh and the mountains of Ajara to the Kolchian coast. Known under the title of atabegs, they flourished in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, became independent of the kings of Georgia, and were only suppressed at a late date by the Ottoman Turks.3 Here was their seat of predilection during the heats of summer, and, except for the arid soil and crops of stones that cover the valleys, one cannot but approve their choice. You are at a height of some 1000 feet above the town of Akhaltsykh; deep below you flows the Kur, the river of Ardahan as they call it, on its way to pierce the barrier of the border ranges by the passage of Borjom. On the side of the ridge a narrow site, whence the ground declines abruptly to the abyss below, is filled by a cluster of little chapels, backed, at the extreme end, by an imposing church. I wish I could offer my reader an ampler description; but just at this point I am trusting entirely to my memory and bewailing the loss of a portion of the day’s notes. Counting the chapels, they would tell you that the monastery contained twelve churches, while according to our notions it possesses only one. That one is St. Saba, of which I offer two illustrations, one to present the ensemble of the building with the adjacent belfry (Fig. 13), the other to exhibit the charming detail of the porch on the west (Fig. 14).

In a treeless country, devoid of the rich bewilderment of a luxuriant Nature, and moulded on a scale which would mock the more ambitious creations of human effort and is everywhere present to the eye, such a jewel in stone as St. Saba and many another Armenian temple are seen at an advantage which they would scarcely possess in Western landscapes. Planted on the rough hillsides, overlooking vast expanses of plain and mountain, winding river and lonely lake, they offer at once a contrast to the bleakness of Nature and a quiet epitome of her startling forms. Take this church as an example of the most finished workmanship; what a pleasure to turn from the endless crop of chaotic boulders to the even surface of these walls of faced masonry which the dry climate preserves ever fresh, to the sharply chiselled stone-work of the elaborate mouldings and bands of arabesques! Or, if you extend the vision to comprise the distant scene about you, it will often happen that the mountain masses tower one above another like the roofs and gables by your side, and culminate in the shape of a dome with a conical summit which repeats these outlines, like a reflection, against the sky.

St. Saba, although created through the munificence of a Georgian atabeg, is probably the work of an Armenian architect, and may certainly be counted as an example of the Armenian style. If we may trust a mutilated inscription in the interior, which has been in part deciphered by Brosset, the present church was built by the Atabeg Sargis, the son of Beka, who flourished between 1306 and 1334; and, if we could only be certain of the signification of the four numeral letters which are plainly seen on the face of the wall at one side of the window of the western porch, we should perhaps be able to fix the exact date. Dubois, indeed, supposes that it was constructed by Manuchar, brother of the last of the atabegs, Kuarkuareh, who fought with such valour against the Turks. But Dubois is relying upon what he terms “constant tradition,” and Brosset cautions us against accepting anything that he has written about Safar. One would certainly not have thought that such a well-instructed traveller, as was Dubois, could have mistaken a monument of the fourteenth century for a production of the later years of the sixteenth; and personally I should be inclined to attribute the edifice to a period at least as early as the fourteenth century.4

August 30.—The Tartar who had accompanied us on the excursion to Safar had fired my cousin with an account of some stag and big game shooting which was to be found some four hours’ journey from the town. According to arrangement he made his appearance in the early morning, and found my cousin already prepared. I had resolved to devote the day to the town and outskirts, should our persecutors leave me free. But I had no sooner reached the bridge from our encampment on the bed of the river, in order to see my cousin on his way, than the plans of both of us were arrested by the advent of Ivan the Terrible, who rose from the cushions of a landau and summoned us to be seated at his side. I need not devote space to a repetition of fresh annoyances, since they had already almost reached their term. Was the departure of Colonel Alander connected with our arrival, and had he gone to satisfy himself about us at Abastuman? When at length we were able to see him he greeted us kindly, and furnished me with all the information of which I was in want. Let me therefore at once introduce the reader to the town of Akhaltsykh and to the people who dwell therein.

The view of the place which I offer (Fig. 15) was taken on the road to Akhalkalaki from the right bank of the river, some distance below the bridge. Within the precincts of the town the camera was strictly interdicted, although, since our tents were pitched just opposite the fortress, we might well have sketched that old-fashioned stronghold from memory when the canvas was closed for the night. The river is flowing towards you through grassy meadows, which are verdant even at this season, and which are being browsed by flocks of sheep and goats. On the right bank, on the left of the picture, and stretching across the middle distance to a promontory which is washed by the stream, lies the modern town with its gardens and substantial houses (Fig. 15, a); on the opposite shore, following the cliff from the extreme right of the illustration, you have first the old town (b), then the fortress (c), and last the gorge (d).

The inhabitants of Akhaltsykh are censused at 15,000—at the time of our visit the registered figure was 15,120, although the latest tabulated statistics which Colonel Alander was able to show me gave a total of 15,914 for 1891. This total was divided in the following manner, according to religion and race: Gregorian Armenians, 9620; Catholic Armenians, 2875; Georgians and Russians, excluding the garrison, 782; Roman Catholics, 97; and 2540 Jews. I cannot help thinking that the proportion of Armenians is excessive, and that the governor has included among those of the Catholic persuasion a considerable number of Armenian Catholics who are of Georgian race. At Kutais I had been informed by a Roman Catholic priest that I should find among the communion of the Armenian Catholics at Akhaltsykh many Georgians whose ancestors had been devout Catholics and had become united to the Armenian Catholics, as the nearest Catholic Church, when the Georgian Church followed the Greek in cutting off relations with Rome. The Georgian kings forbade them to hold their services in Georgian, which had been their practice previously. These men were no doubt the converts of the old Roman Catholic missions; it is known that at the commencement of the thirteenth century the kings of Georgia were in correspondence with the popes, and that these communications and the despatch of missionaries to Georgia were continued in the following century.5 The published statistics of 1886 give the number of Georgians as 2730 souls, and evidently include the large majority of them among the Roman Catholics. It is therefore probable that both lists fall into error, and that of the two the published table is the more reliable in all that concerns distinction of race. I append it in a footnote,6 and have only to add in this connection that in both lists the number of males exceeds that of females, and that for this reason the totals are in general too small. In Colonel Alander’s list the male population amounts to 8335, in the published list to 8480 souls. The women must be at least as numerous as the men, although, owing to Eastern prejudices, they are much more difficult to count.

In several senses the town of Akhaltsykh has undergone a revolution during the course of the present century. At the commencement of this period we are introduced to a flourishing city of the Ottoman Empire, the capital of a pashalik, which was composed of six sanjaks or administrative divisions,7 in close communication with the neighbouring cities of Kars and Erzerum and the emporium of an extensive traffic in Georgian slaves.8 At this time it is said to have contained some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom the greater portion were Mussulmans.9 The site of the city was the same as that of the old town of the present day, but the houses extended to the immediate confines of the citadel. The whole was defended by moats and a double row of walls with battlements and flanking towers. The right bank of the river was embellished by numerous gardens, but there does not appear to have been anything like a town upon this side. The citadel was remarkable for its beautiful mosque, with an imposing minaret more than 130 feet high. This minaret, like the mosque, was built of blocks of hewn stone; and, so solid was its structure, that it suffered little damage during the Russian bombardment, although hit by no less than seven cannon balls. Such was Akhaltsykh prior to its conquest by the Russians under Paskevich in 1828.10 The conquerors introduced far-reaching changes, of which the evidence remains to the present time. They razed a portion of the town in the vicinity of the fortress, which had furnished cover to the Turks in the desperate attempt which they subsequently made to recapture their old stronghold. The outer walls of the city were either demolished or fell into ruin and disappeared. The mosque of the citadel was converted into a Russian church and shorn of its minaret.11 A new town was founded on the right bank of the river and assigned to Armenian colonists. The Mussulman population emigrated into Turkey; and Akhaltsykh, which received a large body of Armenian immigrants from Kars and Erzerum, became practically a Christian town. The native inhabitants who were Christians erected belfries near their churches and heard with joy the sound of Christian bells. But it would seem that no great measure of prosperity attended this new birth. The immigrants were bent on doing business and opening shops; only those among them who were agriculturists did well. Commerce declined owing to the inclusion of the town within the frontier line of the Russian customs and the consequent interruption of relations with the neighbouring cities in the south. The traffic in slaves was, of course, abolished, and no considerable industry took its place. Akhaltsykh was shut up in her corner of Asia; for the impracticable barrier of the border ranges walls her off from the sea. Still the fact that the place was a frontier fortress of the Russian Empire must have been productive of at least a local trade. In 1833 the population appears to have numbered only 11,000 souls;12 but it probably increased from that date, year by year. When Kars came into the permanent possession of the Russians, the newly-acquired fortress in part supplanted Akhaltsykh; and the progressive decline of the Turkish Empire has further contributed to relieve the Government of the necessity of providing the last-named stronghold with modern fortifications. At the time of my visit it was evident that the town was declining and losing importance year by year. I questioned several of the better-informed among the inhabitants as to the cause of this unhappy state of things. “You have long enjoyed the blessings of security,” I observed, “both for property and life; yet in place of a steadily increasing prosperity I see nothing but signs of impoverishment and falling-off.” As usual in the East, I received several answers; but all were unanimous in declaring that the principal reason was the depopulation of the surrounding country, owing to the persistent emigration of the Mussulmans and the want of colonists to take their place. Another cause, they said, was the decline in military importance to which I have already referred.

The modern town on the right bank was nearest to our encampment; may I therefore commence the account of what we saw at Akhaltsykh with a stroll through its garden-lined streets? The houses are nice little one-storeyed dwellings, some built of brick, others of stone. A feature were the quaint little spouts to carry off the rain-water, shaped at the ends to resemble dragons’ heads. I have already spoken of the “cherry-coloured roofing”—an effect which we discovered was due to no more interesting process than a coat of paint applied to corrugated iron. In a similar manner the roof of a church would be tinted a cool green, and the combination of these hues with the rich foliage was extremely pleasing to the eye. Where the scattered tenements collect together and you reach the business quarter, here and there a modern shop may be seen; but the handicrafts for which Akhaltsykh is in some degree famous are still carried on in those brick-built booths with their shadowed recesses which constitute the little world of the Eastern artificer, at once his workshop and the mart for his wares. We examined some of the productions of the workers in silver without being tempted to buy. We were made aware of the existence of a silk industry for which the raw material is brought from Georgia. We visited the schools and conversed with the masters; but the scholars were making holiday. Akhaltsykh possesses two important schools, the one belonging to the Armenian community, the other a Russian State school. That of the Armenians provides education to some 300 boys and youths, and to a still larger number of girls. Both the Gregorian Armenians and the Catholics attend this establishment; religious instruction is imparted to the members of either communion by teachers of their own persuasion in separate classes. We were told that the yearly income amounted to 14,000 roubles (£1400), exclusive of what was received from the girls; and that this sum included the receipts of the theatre which is attached to this enterprising school. The Russian institution boasts of 300 scholars, of whom 75 per cent are Armenians; it does not possess a branch for girls. On the other hand, it indulges in the modern fashion of technical instruction, a side which does not appear to be cultivated in the Armenian school. Its staff consists of fifteen teachers; a fee of twelve roubles (£1:4s.) a year is levied, but many poor pupils are admitted free. A few boarders are received, whose parents live at a distance; and I may here remark that, except in cases which I shall endeavour to specify, all the schools of which I shall make mention in the following pages are practically day-schools. We were taken to see the churches—commonplace edifices—of which the Armenians, with so many examples of noble architecture about them, ought really to be ashamed. The largest of them is called the cathedral, and belongs to the Gregorians; there is also, not far from it, an Armenian Catholic church. West of the cathedral on the hillside—it appears in my illustration—we were shown a second church belonging to the Gregorian community; but I do not remember its name. It was at Akhaltsykh that we were first impressed by the custom of the Armenians to kiss the ground when they face the altar in prayer. Such abject prostration in the dust we had never before witnessed in any Christian church. It was Oriental; it was pathetic—the gesture of a poor raya at the feet of his savage lord.... Last of all we were shown the Court of Justice, where a resident magistrate and visiting judges from Tiflis dispense the law behind a barrier of baize-covered tables beneath a life-size portrait of the Tsar. And that is what we saw of the modern town of Akhaltsykh; I doubt whether there is much more to be seen.

The old town on the left bank presents a striking contrast to its young rival across the water. You gain the bridge and pause for a moment to follow the many-channelled river threading the banks of yellow pebbles in its bed; flowing through a landscape of wild and bare hills, which streams with the garish daylight of the East. The road mounts the slope of the opposite cliff or convexity, which, a little further west, joins the more abrupt ridge of crag and precipice crowned by the battlements of the fortress. In this cliff, with its swelling shapes, soft soil and irregular hummocks, the Armenians have discovered a burrowing-ground exactly suited to their requirements; the gaping apertures of chimneys and windows threaten to engulf the guileless traveller who walks, unwitting, between the houses up the hillside. No vegetation relieves the monotony of the constant hues of ochre, and the tiers of clay and stone which represent the larger tenements mingle naturally with the stone-strewn surface of the friable earth. We saw two churches; one is administered by the Armenian Catholics, the other, which is situated a little above the first, is a Russian Orthodox church. Besides these larger buildings there are two chapels or prayer-houses, which scarcely attain the dignity of a church. These belong to the Gregorians, and we were told that the Roman Catholics have a small chapel within the precincts of the old town. But what interested us most was the Jewish quarter with its two spacious synagogues. We admired the simplicity of these airy chambers—in the middle the pulpit, the benches disposed around; and we pictured to ourselves the eager faces of the congregation, upturned from those benches to the grave preacher and mobile to every turn of his discourse. The Jew is a rare creature upon the tableland of Armenia; he finds it difficult to exist by the side of the Armenian, who is his rival in his own peculiar sphere.13 There is a saying that in cleverness a Jew is equal to two Greeks, a single Armenian to two Jews.

The community gathered round us and almost filled the synagogue, in which we sat and rested for a considerable space. Two distinct types of physiognomy were represented; on the one hand the fat, florid cheeks and thick lips which are so characteristic of the coarser strain of Jew, on the other the cavernous features, wrinkled skin, aquiline nose and penetrating eyes which are the monument of the ancient refinement of the Jewish race. When we contrasted the destitution and even the misery of this quarter with the air of prosperity which the synagogue displayed, it was evident that the community were undergoing a period of adversity, and we enquired the reasons of this decline. They attributed their fallen state to the competition of the Armenians; the Armenians, they said, were good workers and a great people, the Jews few in numbers and isolated. There was nothing left for the poor Jew but to tramp round the villages, carrying his goods upon his back. They must emigrate, they were emigrating.... Alas! we thought, to what distant land across the mountains, across the sea, shall the poor Jew wander out? How shall he escape the dangers of the way, with the hand of the Government against him, with hatred and contempt dogging his weary steps? And the Christianity by our side appeared detestable to us, doubly odious by its want of every Christian virtue and by the mummery of its gaudy symbols and vulgar shows. The Jew carries with him the vastness of Asia, the sublimity of the worship of a single God; may the nations be fertilised by the powerful intellect and their religions elevated by the high conceptions of the Hebrew race!

The fortress, with which the old town naturally communicates, was to us strictly forbidden ground. Although I urged its worthlessness as a reason why we should be permitted to visit it, Captain Taranoffsky would on no account give way. The mosque, the present church, to which I have already alluded, was of course all that we wanted to see. It stands on the northern side of the fortress enclosure; the base of the minaret still remains and is crowned by a little cupola to which is affixed a cross. An inscription on the gate by which the court is entered gives as the date of construction the year of the Hegira 1166 (A.D. 1752–53).14 Dubois informs us that the architect was an Italian;15 but Brosset, who says that it was built upon the model of St. Sophia, is silent upon this point. For the character of the interior as it existed before the Russian occupation I may refer the reader to Dubois. The fountain in the centre of the court is supplied by an underground aqueduct which conveys the waters of a limpid spring, some seven miles off.16

From the old town we slowly made our way back to the encampment, enjoying the scene, observing the passers-by. Here and there we would meet a group of Russian soldiers in their white tunics, taking their evening stroll. Their large frames, fair hair, shaven faces and coarse features contrasted with the neatness of the Oriental type. Their little eyes, deeply set behind the flat nose, were answered on every side by the glances that proceeded from the large and lustrous eyes of the Armenian race. The sheep and cattle were winding into the town from the meadows, each animal finding its stable for itself.