io6 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



native tom-tom of sorts, which, in a sound volume 

 similar to that which would result from a vigorous 

 crashing together of pan lids, incited everyone to a 

 frenzy of Trojan endeavour. How they didn't cut each 

 other I can't think. A beneficent Providence was at 

 its post. 



By a gradual ascent we left the cornfields behind us, 

 and once again passed into the solitudes of dense woods, 

 a forest of Arden, so steeply placed we could not ride 

 our horses, but had to tow them instead. 



Here, sunk deep in an ocean of green, high above the 

 valley of Kakheti, gripping the precipitous sides of the 

 ravine with stony feet, stood the dilapidated remains 

 of an ancient church-castle, once evidently a strong- 

 hold of some pretensions. The waste places of Georgia 

 and Kakheti are dotted with these decaying reminders 

 of the past. What a business it must have been 

 constructing these chapels and towers and castles on 

 such out-of-the-way sites, often on almost perpen- 

 dicular slopes. They were tough fellows, those old- 

 time builders ! 



Chardin, the seventeenth-century traveller, in his 

 own decisive fashion tried to probe the reason for this 

 odd habit of choosing remote peaks and difficult 

 places as the situations of sacred edifices. " I was 

 never able to learn the reason for this foolish practice," 

 he says. " All of those of whom I inquired have ever 

 made the same silly reply : ' It is the custom.' " 

 They are looked at and reverenced at the distance of 

 several leagues, but they are seldom visited, indeed it 

 is very certain that but few are opened even once in 



