THE RAINS. 343 



ferers from Cossack wantonness after the war by 

 the Government. 



In Sotclia roses were in bloom when I arrived, 

 as well as strawberries ; and my host told me that a 

 few days before my arrival he gathered half a 

 dozen ripe strawberries in his garden, which had 

 ripened out of doors, and this in the beginning of 

 February. Up to the time of which I write there 

 had been no frost at Sotcha. The chief produce of 

 the neighbouring gardens are grapes, of which 

 several varieties grow in great luxuriance on the 

 slopes just above the town if town you can call the 

 few houses that surround the landing-place. But 

 if the Governor has not been misinformed and is 

 not too sanguine, Sotcha has a future, and may 

 at no distant date develop into a second Yalta. A 

 little table-land on the Poti side of the town has 

 already been laid out in sites for villas, to be 

 erected as summer residences for a number of old 

 military officers and their families. Better still, all 

 the sites are bought and paid for. 



During the day which I lost at Sotcha waiting 

 for horses for of course I lost one, as every im- 

 patient traveller in this land of delays must be 

 invariably content to do I heard again of the fear- 

 less depredations of the lynx. During the night 

 the dogs of Sotcha an extremely large and in- 

 fluential body were heard raising their voices in 

 a manner altogether unusual even with them ; and 



