156 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



the gorgeous coloring of its bulbed domes : in its multitu- 

 dinous bells, and in a variety of minor matters, of which 

 I will instance two. The Chinese Abacus or counting 

 frame, is used in every bank and shop in Moscow, and 

 throughout Russia. The Chinese influence is curiously 

 shewn in the ornaments painted even on the brewers' 

 drays : where we constantly meet with the chrysanthemum 

 pattern on a scarlet ground. The same ornament is used 

 on the wooden spoons made here, and sold all over the 

 Empire for the use of the peasantry. I bought some of 

 these Muscovite spoons in the Armenian bazaar at Tiflis. 

 The wood is varnished, and ornamented with bronze, as 

 in Chinese and Japanese work : while the shape itself is 

 the European bowl with " fiddle-pattern " handle ! I may 

 mention that the Armenian of whom I bought them put 

 them up in a paper bag of his own making. It was 

 covered with text in an alphabet of Phoenician origin ; and 

 over pictures in this text, might be deciphered the words, 

 "Punch, or the London Charivari"! 



My English friend and I had for travelling companions 

 over the mountain, a Russian interpreter, a Georgian wine- 

 grower, who was on his way home from Stavropol to 

 rejoin his wife and children at his vineyard in Kakhetia, 

 and a Jew, homeward bound to Tiflis. Our conveyance 

 over the snow on the summit was a covered sledge drawn 

 by four horses. It allowed us each but cramped space, 

 and it was no small relief, after fifteen hours' continuous 

 rise, to find we had surmounted the pass, rather over 

 eight thousand feet in altitude, and were beginning to run 

 down on the Asian side of Mount Kazbek, which here 

 towers more than 8,500 feet higher stiU above us. 



The Russian Government has built substantial stations 

 all along this military road, and our Georgian fellow- 

 traveller took some refreshment at the first of these in 

 descending the mountain, Lars. When he had resumed 

 his seat in the sledge, he threw himself back, closed his 



