TIFLIS. 225 



form of a dashing cavalry officer, is but the official 

 dress of a telegraphist or an apothecary's clerk. 

 All those medals and orders adorn the breast, 

 not of a veteran general, but of a well-fed, con- 

 tented tailor. Why he got them he perhaps can 

 explain to you. I have seen the phenomenon of a 

 peaceable civilian's breast blazing with brass plates 

 and orders at a Governor's reception, but I never 

 could understand the cause of that phenomenon. 



To atone for the warlike aspect of many of its 

 well-fed citizens, Tiflis presents to you, in common 

 with other towns in the Caucasus and Southern 

 Russia, some strangely domestic specimens of the 

 officer proper. Any day of the week you may 

 meet on the boulevard, with sword clanking by his 

 side and perhaps some fair dame with him, a young 

 dragoon in full uniform, with a poultice tied round 

 his neck, or a large white cloth bandaging his 

 manly cheeks to cure the faceache. Such a face- 

 cloth we are accustomed to see round the scullery, 

 maid's red face in England, but in full uniform it 

 seems a strange appendage to heroic youth. 



The Russians are a hopeless puzzle to a foreigner. 

 They stringently prohibit the importation of the 

 most harmless foreign newspaper, erasing whole 

 passages in any sent to residents amongst them 

 by post ; and yet Mr. Grenville Murray's book, 

 ' Russians of To-day,' is allowed to be sold, and has 

 had such a rapid sale that I could only secure a 







