2l8 TIFLIS. 



food and wine deemed necessary for a three days' 

 campaign will strike despair into his heart. I am 

 sorry to have to say it, because some Russians 

 have been most kind to me ; but a shooting expe- 

 dition, as a rule, means an excuse for extraordi- 

 nary eating and drinking, which is carried 011 at 

 such a rate that, spite of the enormous supplies, 

 the expedition generally has to return on the 

 second day, having consumed everything. 



On my return from antelope-shooting at Karias 

 I had to spend four or five days at Tiflis as best I 

 could, waiting until my papers were all ready and 

 everything arranged for a start to Lenkoran. 

 Having left almost all my European clothing at 

 Kertch, I was hardly in a fit state to make much 

 use of my introductions, so I passed my time in 

 inspecting Tiflis and watching the life around me. 

 And my time, thus employed, did not hang very 

 heavily on my hands. First, there was the 

 Museum, where Professor Radde did the honours 

 in the most genial way, and added to the interest of 

 the collection by anecdotes of his travels on the 

 Amoor in the pursuit of his favourite study. The 

 arrangement of some of the groups of natural objects 

 is wonderfully artistic, the wild goats being repre- 

 sented in natural attitudes on their native rocks, 

 and the vultures gorging on a dead camel in a way 

 that is almost too realistic. But one of the hand- 

 somest things in the whole collection is a 



o 



