TIFLIS AND ITS INHABITANTS 6i 



streets ; old Tiflis, going eastward from the Muscovite 

 centre, tucked away in a hollow ; and, linked to the 

 Russianized town by a fine bridge, the German quarter, 

 where live the descendants of the Wiirtemburg 

 emigrants who accepted Russian hospitality some 

 ninety years ago. Here they flourish, in stolid Swabian 

 fashion, happy exiles in a community with whom they 

 have nothing in common. Bordering their tree-lined 

 principal street are the beer-gardens. Everything is 

 German, language, shops, schools, people. Somehow or 

 other, you have stepped into Hans Andersen's Magic 

 Trunk, and, opening the lid, peep out on Tubingen. 



Does everyone feel the mysterious allurements of an 

 untracked town ? Unexplored cities have an irre- 

 sistible fascination for me. It is, I think, the cob- 

 webby remnants of childhood's days clinging about 

 one still. Memory is harking back to those fairy 

 valleys and make-believes, which were for all of us. 



Russian Tiflis is hke many another European town, 

 but old Tiflis is like nothing on earth but itself. The 

 narrow streets and overhanging balconies were made 

 for Caucasian Romeos and Juliets. Only there are no 

 flowers. Plenty of colour, but no flowers. 



We make for the Tatar Bazaar first, to the tortuous 

 winding lanes where the airless air hangs heavy with 

 the potent smell of the East. The congested ways 

 would not pass muster with a sanitary engineer ! We 

 should have to remind him that it is easier for a native 

 to rid himself of caste than of ingrained habits of 

 insanitation. And the ^, inter frost rids this country 

 of most of its ills. 



