70 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



a few over, very different from the chequered working 

 overtime state of things existent in England. 



The intense heat of summer drives most of the 

 aristocratic residents of Tiflis to the numerous health 

 resorts of the country, but just as it is with us when 

 the newspapers tell us " London is empty," there 

 were any number of people about. But, of course, 

 July and August are not the time to form an opinion 

 of local society. The notables do not return until late 

 September ; by November the season, with its un- 

 limited gaieties, is in full swing. 



This metropolis of Caucasia would have been a 

 much less grilling spot in summer had the town 

 planners of old time chosen a site a little farther up 

 the Kura, a really ideal situation. I asked an 

 Ossetian warrior the whys and wherefores of this 

 palpable mistake, and he said that the city natur- 

 ally would grow up about the hot sulphur springs, 

 the springs now glorified into baths and run by the 

 ubiquitous Armenians, who, like the Chinaman on the 

 Pacific coast have " arrived " and no mistake about it. 

 The Russians call the invaders " the Jews of the East," 

 and have a frequently trotted-out saying to the effect 

 that a Jew can out-bargain any two Russians, and an 

 Armenian overreach the lot. 



They are just everywhere, this most energetically 

 pushing of peoples, who hold the trade of Trans- 

 caucasia in the hollow of their hands. The streets 

 are full of them, dressed in European clothes, or an 

 imitation of the cotton tunic of the Tatar, pad, pad, 

 padding along, plantigrade fashion, on large flat feet. 



