TIFLIS. 199 



too much to drink, to engage an organ-grinder by 

 the day, drive him about playing over them, until 

 they have called at so many ' cabaks ' on the way 

 as to render their seats in the droshky insecure, 

 and then, alighting at their favourite drinking-den, 

 enthrone their grinder on the table round which 

 they sit, and to the tunes of their beloved instru- 

 ment succumb gloriously to the united charms of 

 Bacchus and Apollo. 



Next morning they go home from the gutter 

 with a consciousness of having spent a happy day, 

 as a happy day ought to be spent, and regard its 

 memory as a thing to be proud of. It seems a 

 strange thing, but in Russia and amongst these 

 people the peasants envy a drunkard instead of 

 pitying him. Drunkenness is to them a highly 

 desirable condition, and shame for it they cannot 

 understand. The most popular Englishman who 

 ever lived and travelled amongst the Caucasian 

 tribes owed his popularity entirely to the enormous 

 quantity of strong drink he could absorb without 

 doing himself any harm. The Circassians them- 

 selves have an almost incredible facility for drinking 

 large quantities of wine without any apparent harm. 



A propoN of wine, the wine of the country, or 

 rather one of the wines of the country, the Kach- 

 ketinsky wine, both red and white, is admirable, 

 and far superior to any of the imported wines to 

 be met with at Tiflis. There is another wine which 



