twelve or sixteen oxen were ploughing up the stubble. The air grew fresher and fresher as we mounted out of the oven where Tiflis lies, till in a couple of hours we reached Kajori, where, at 5000 feet above the sea and 3700 feet above Tiflis, we were revelling in a climate like that of the middle slopes of the Alps, keen cool breezes making even the powerful sun enjoyable. There is a good deal of wood about, which adds to the sense of coolness, and away to the south large masses and ranges of mountains, unknown to us, rose up one behind another, parts of the chain which has been called the Anti-Caucasus, and which divides. Armenia on the south from Georgia and Imeritia. Eastwards we discovered, among the far-off hills of Daghestan, the snowy peak of Basarjusi (14,722 feet); northward lay the Central Caucasus, with Kazbek conspicuous in the midst, overhanging the depression where the Dariel road crosses into Europe. A more delightful spot to be idle in can hardly be imagined than this grassy upland, with its invigorating breezes and prospects stretching over two hundred miles of forest, dale, and mountain.

The prince Adjutant-General, however, to whom we presented ourselves in his pretty little wooden villa, was not idle. Mounted Cossacks were galloping up with despatches, waiting outside, and galloping off again down the steep road to Tiflis with that air of important haste which the bearer of despatches loves to assume. However, this did not prevent us from receiving a cordial welcome, and enjoying a long and leisurely conversation, resumed after dinner in the

open air, in which our host showed a mastery not only of European politics generally, but even of English party politics and the views and sympathies of our leading statesmen, which few of our own soldiers or diplomatists could have equalled. Remembering that conversation, I understand the temptation which an "interviewer" has to report what an eminent person says to him. But I will resist it.

Kajori is but a small place as yet, though with the growth of Tiflis it is likely to increase, and we visited only one other person there, General Chodzko, the distinguished engineer officer who in 1850 led a surveying party up Ararat. From him and his secretary, Mr. Scharoyan, I received a valuable suggestion for the climb, which we were thinking of trying, viz. to keep to the rocks rather than trust the snow, and many injunctions on no account to ascend alone. In the evening we returned to Tiflis, fortified with all the recommendations that could be desired to convey us along the road into Armenia, for which, on the next day but one, we started accordingly.

I seem to have given in these few pages but a meagre account of the sights of the Transcaucasian capital, wanting both in the practical precision of Baedeker and the wealth of illustrative learning and disquisition and quotation which is the glory of our great English series of guide-books. Even the picturesque side of the place suffers in the hands of a traveller who must own that he has no eye for costume. My excuse is that in Tiflis it is not the particular things to be seen in the city that impress

themselves on one's memory: it is the city itself, the strange mixture of so many races, tongues, religions, customs. Its character lies in the fact that it has no one character, but ever so many different ones. Here all these peoples live side by side, buying and selling, and working for hire, yet never coming into any closer union, remaining indifferent to one another, with neither love, nor hate, nor ambition, peaceably obeying a government of strangers who conquered them without resistance and retain them without effort, and held together by no bond but its existence. Of national life, or municipal life, there is not the first faint glimmering : indeed, the aboriginal people of the country seem scarcely less strangers in its streets than do all the other races that tread them. It is hard to say what the future has in store for such a town; meantime it prospers, delivered for ever from the fear of Persian devastation, and, in spite of bran-new boulevards and stuccoed shop-fronts, it is wonderfully picturesque.

CHAPTER V.

THROUGH ARMENIA TO ARARAT.

IN this chapter I propose to give some account of the route which leads from Tiflis through Armenia to the foot of Ararat and the borders of Persia, and of the ancient city of Erivan, the capital of a Russian government (= province) of the same name. Let me premise that the term "Russian Armenia," which it is often convenient to use, does not denote any political division. Armenia is merely a popular historical name for the countries which at one time or another formed part of the old Armenian kingdom.

On the 6th of September my companion and I rattled out of Tiflis in a comfortable tarantass, threading our way with difficulty for the first mile or two through the crowd of carts, pack-horses, and sometimes strings of camels which were entering the city laden with merchandise. Perhaps, however, I ought to say what a tarantass is. Two kinds of vehicle are used here, as in the Russian empire generally, for the conveyance of passengers-the telega and the tarantass. A telega is simply a small fourwheeled square or oblong cart, usually with sides, which give it the air of a box upon wheels, but some

times without sides, a mere flat piece of board, on the edge of which you sit, letting your legs dangle over. Of its capacities, or incapacities, for comfort, I shall speak later on. The tarantass is in shape more like a large Norwegian carriole, but with four wheels: it is a seat, placed in the centre of a longish pole, which again is set on the axles of the wheels. This gives it a sort of elasticity; in fact, the pole acts as a spring, just as in the American vehicle called a buckboard. It holds three persons, one beside the driver, and two on the seat proper, and is sometimes made with a hood to come up behind, which gives shelter in wintertime. There is just enough space in front of the sitter's knees to hold some light luggage, with a little box under the seat where you can stow away bread, tea, and grapes, the supplies with which we had started. Our tarantass, lent by a kind friend at Tiflis, had no hood, but in summer, and for a comparatively short journey, where there was no occasion to sleep much, this was no loss; and otherwise it was satisfactory, and went as smoothly as tarantasses ever do. From the terrible sun one could get some protection by a white umbrella and dark spectacles, but the dust was less resistable; it penetrated everywhere, even to the middle of our loaf of bread. Under any other circumstances, life in such dust would have been a burden. However, we had just escaped from the furnace of Tiflis into the clear, dry, exhilarating air of the steppe; we were going ahead into a really curious and seldom visited country-a country of which we had all our lives known the name, and