224 TIFLIS. 



with the gymnasts returning from school. The 

 difference between a Russian gymnast and an 

 English schoolboy is as great as that between the 

 climates in which they live. Everywhere the Rus- 

 sian gymnast has the same costume a blue frock- 

 coat with brass buttons and a quasi military-peaked 

 cap. His whole bearing, however small he may be, 

 is that of a little old man, half soldier, half scholar, 

 and in all sedate and quite a man of the world. 

 He has, as far as I have seen, no games ; bear- 

 fighting is unknown to him ; that sterner kind of 

 fighting, which in English schooldays generally 

 takes place behind the chapel, is equally so ; he 

 wears gloves if he can afford it, he speaks French, 

 and makes a poor imitation of French manners; he 

 is nearly as much addicted to spectacles as a Ger- 

 man student, is not the least bit shy in ladies' 

 vsociety, and smokes with an easy grace that many 

 a freshman might envy. Poor fellow, his pre- 

 cocious social qualities are dearly bought at the 

 .sacrifice of all the merry, untamed roughness of the 

 English schoolboy. 



Everywhere the streets teem with uniforms, 

 from that of the gymnast of eight years old to 

 that of the general of eighty. But be not alarmed, 

 pacific sojourner in the streets of Tiflis ! Many, nay 

 most of these warlike-looking men are at least as 

 peaceable civilians as yourself. That gorgeous 

 apparel which you believe must cover the manly 



