that would have gladdened the heart of Aristophanes; but as we advance, the ground becomes higher and firmer-long, low ranges of hills begin to lift themselves against the sky-the bright sunshine of a spring morning replaces the ghostly mist that broods over the fatal morasses of the Rion-and the genuine Caucasus rises before us in all its splendour.

Sitting at home in England, and reading of Caucasian post-roads and Caucasian railways, it is difficult to remind oneself that this quiet region, which a passing tourist may traverse as safely and commodiously as Saxony or the Tyrol, was so recently the scene of one of the bloodiest and most protracted struggles recorded in history; but here, shut in by black broken crags of immeasurable height, with the river lashing itself into foam far below, and just space enough between the precipice above and the precipice beneath for our train to slide past, one begins to realise what the conquest of such a region must have been. The march of an army through such defiles (which are as nothing to the grisly gorges of Northern Daghestan) encumbered with wounded and pursued by an implacable enemy, with a fire-flash from behind every bush, and the whole mountain-side alive with the crack of the fatal rifles would be grim work. To those who question the fighting power of the Russian soldier, there is one sufficient reply: "He conquered the Caucasus."

And so we fare on our way, amid strange alternations of scenery-now gliding under the shadow of mighty

cliffs that seem already toppling to overwhelm us, and now rushing through a quiet little green valley, dotted with tiny log-huts—at one moment looking down into a yawning chasm, and the next, catching a glimpse of some ruined castle perched above the clouds. At length we come to a sudden halt in front of a long, low, rudely-built shed, planted on the only visible piece of level ground; and here passengers and baggage are disembarked en masse, as if the train had been stopped by brigands. What does this mean?

It means that the line has not yet shaken itself clear of its quarterly landslip; and that this long file of cars and waggons, drawn up at the foot of the great mountainwall, are to carry us across the twelve miles of magnificent scenery which lie between us and the second train that awaits us at Suram. Accordingly, I and three other victims squeeze ourselves into the foremost car-a rickety affair, all hoops and tarpaulin, like the skeleton of a starved cab-and go zig-zagging up the great ascent over a road which, to do it justice, can hardly be matched out of Britain. For here, as in the Highlands of Scotland and the Western States of America, men have learned that spade and pickaxe are surer engines of warfare than bayonet and cannon; and that the most warlike race on earth cannot long defend a country once fairly laid open by lines of communication.

Upward, ever upward-past green plateaus, and plunging torrents, and frowning rocks, and deserted hamlets-past creaking waggons drawn by broad-horned oxen, and flocks of pastured goats, which greet us with

a shrill cry-while, all around, the great billows of wooded mountain roll up, ridge beyond ridge, like all the waves of the Deluge frozen into forests. Far below, the thin grey streak of the railroad outlines itself amid the sombre green of the hills; and here and there a swarm of human ants may be seen creeping among the débris of the great earth-slide, like the gnomes of Swartheim "toiling in the secret places of the earth." As we mount higher, the chill mountain blasts make themselves felt in earnest; and when at length, on the crest of the highest ridge, we reach the toll-bar which divides the Government of Kutais from that of Tiflis, there is not one of us who does not gladly avail himself of the wrappings which he laughed to scorn in the sunny valley below. But, once past the summit, we rattle down in gallant style into the quaint little village of Suram, and hasten to seat ourselves over the steaming soup which awaits us in the impromptu refreshment room.

One by one, the other cars trickle in; but night has already begun to fall before the train is ready to start. And after that, all is one dim phantasmagoria of dark mountains, and glimmering rivers, and black wastes of moorland, and stations flashing out for a moment in sudden lamplight-till' at length, just about midnight, I find myself jolting through the flaring streets of a great town, and fall asleep an hour later with the comfortable consciousness that I am actually in Tiflis at last.

CHAPTER II.

PROMETHEUS AT HOME.

THERE are places which every one can imagine, but no one describe; and Tiflis is one of them. The mono

tonous sameness of eastern cities, or the monotonous variety of western ones, is easily sketched; but the mixture of the two at their point of intersection defies all powers of language. How are you to believe in modern times among men who gravely show you the rock on which Prometheus was bound, and the stone to which Jason moored the Argo,* or exhibit genealogies tracing their lineal descent from Solomon? How are you to revive the classic age among French bonnets, and cotelettes à la financière, and copies of Punch or L'Illustration? Five minutes' walk carries you from the nineteenth century to the fourteenth-from the Russian quarter, with its lamp-lit streets and brand-new brick houses (whose staring red and white surface gives them the look of having just been flayed alive) to the “Persian town," where you step out of one man's door into another man's chimney, and elbow your way, along narrow lanes, reeking with filth, through crowds of veiled women and bare-legged water-carriers. In this

* This actually happened to me at Kutais.

place, as in others which I am destined to visit before my journey is over, the Past has entrenched itself against the Present, and has held its ground. The traditions of Russian clubs and of Athenian, lecturerooms meet upon the same ground, and the Arabian Nights clasp hands with the Invalide Russe and the Allgemeine Zeitung.

In the stillness of a quiet April evening, I climb the ridge from which the ancient Georgian fortress looks silently down upon a land whence the sceptre of Georgian royalty has long since departed. At my feet the valley of the Kur lies like a map, throwing out upon its green background, now all ablaze with the western sunlight, the serried roofs, and straight white streets, and glittering church towers, and bridges black with eddying figures, of busy, modern Tiflis. And here the contrast of Past and Present becomes overwhelming. To my right a tall factory chimney flings its smoke over the bank along which the hosts of "David the Restorer' marched in triumph; to my left a telegraph line runs across the green table land once thronged by the chosen horsemen of Georgia. Just behind me, the fortress-rock falls away in a sheer precipice down to a black, narrow, tomb-like ravine, through which pours one of the countless streams that feed the Kur till summer comes to dry them; while farther along, on a less precipitous part, hangs a dainty little public garden, with a pavilion in which English porter and limonade gazeuse may be bought ad libitum. And over all this strange medley of ancient and modern, tower, far away on the northern

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