THIRD JOURNEY TO THE CAUCASUS. 319 



were quickly driven to the village a few miles off. 

 There the whole community took pains to show attention 

 to their German countrymen and especially to their 

 Suabian countrywoman. We had to inspect the church, 

 the school, and the waterworks, and took genuine 

 delight in the old thoroughly German orderliness, which 

 has defied all opposing influences of the country and 

 climate. Helenendorf is the most flourishing and 

 prosperous of all the Suabian settlements in the 

 Caucasus, and owes this in part, no doubt, to the 

 healthy climate and the favourable situation in a fine, 

 mountainous, and well-watered region. To its inhabitants 

 the merit is due of having introduced German con- 

 veyances into the Caucasus. Eecently the colony has 

 taken to the cultivation of the vine, and turns out 

 excellent products of the native grapes by the appli- 

 cation of modern methods. 



The railroad - journey through the monotonous 

 steppe of Elisabethpol to Baku does not offer much that 

 is noticeable. The vegetation is very scanty, with the 

 exception of places which lie by water-courses or have 

 artificial irrigation, of which certainly for the most 

 part only a few traces have remained. It is not the 

 land which has value in such regions, but the water 

 which can be conveyed to it. Progressive culture 

 will in this respect be still able to do much, but even 

 if the rivers were deprived of all their water to 

 fertilize the fields, this would benefit only a small 

 part of the great steppes of Russia. The needful 

 amount of rain is wanting. Whether this has ab- 



