A HOT SU:\DIER. 47 



has now, thanks to the American Petroleum 

 Company at Taman, grown into a bustling, 

 prosperous town. At Kertch we heard the 

 wail of a parched country over the summer 

 now passing away. Ten days before our 

 advent the thermometer there had shown 120° 

 Fahrenheit in the shade, and at Theodosia 

 water had been sold m the streets at so much 

 the glassful. All vegetation was burnt com- 

 pletely off the hillsides, and no one in Kertch 

 had heard of such a summer for forty years. 

 The Caucasus was represented as havmg been, 

 and still being, a little hotter than Hades, so 

 that our heads ached at the mere thought of 

 what was before us ere we could gain the 

 cool neighbourhood of the snow peaks. 



The mouth of the Rion at Poti is never 

 very beautiful, Tvith its banks of black mud 

 showing above its dark and sluggish waters ; 

 its thickets of thorn and scrub growing densely 

 on either hand, suggestive in theu* rank 



