THE CAUCASUS IN SIGHT. ?g 



hurry to get on deck, and both: men looked, as they well 

 mig'ht, very sheepish and ashamed of themselves. 



It was about 2 a.m. when we got off from Batoum. The 

 cold soon drove us below, but we came on deck again at 

 sunrise, so as to lose nothing of our approach to the Cau- 

 casian shores. The steamer was running quickly across the 

 fine bay which forms the eastern end of the Black Sea ; 

 behind us lay the ranges on the Turkish frontier, grand 

 masses rising to 8,000 or 10,000 feet in height, carrying at 

 this early season, and after an unusually inclement winter, 

 a great quantity of snow, but still clearly mountains of 

 the second class ; before us rose ridge behind ridge, until 

 behind and above them, all towered the peaks of the central 

 chain of the Caucasus, scarcely telling their height to the 

 eye uninitiated in mountain mj^steries, but showing us 

 plainly enough that we were in the x)resence of an array 

 of giants, armed in like panoply of cliff and ice to those 

 we had so often encountered in the Alps. One great dome 

 of snow, which conspicuously overtopped all its neighbours, 

 we hailed at the time as Elbruz, and I do not doubt we 

 were right in our recognition of the monarch. On our 

 right lay a low wooded coast, the basin of the Eion ; a 

 group of twelve vessels anchored about a mile off' shore, 

 and a tall lighthouse marked the mouth of the river and 

 the position of Poti. The meeting of the fresh water and 

 the salt was most curious ; the Rion is at all times a 

 muddy stream, and the line between the brown and blue 

 water was marked sharply enough to be visible from a 

 considerable distance. The town lies about half a mile up 

 the Rion, on the southern bank ; we ran up alongside a 

 wharf, close to the custom-house — a long log-building, 

 where our luggage was very leniently examined, and our 

 passports were taken away; we were told they should be sent 

 after us to Tiflis. There is no restriction asfainst brinc:in2r 



