VALLEY ON THE QUIRILI. 93 



hill leads up to a picturesque ivied tower, and a solitary 

 house stands on the opposite bank of the stream, which is 

 suddenly confined between bold precipices of limestone 

 crag, beneath which the road passes. The defile soon opens 

 out, and the third station comes in sight. Here there were 

 no horses to be had, and after an inspection of the stable, to 

 ascertain that we had been told the truth. Tucker and I set 

 off up the nearest and steepest hillside, to while away the 

 two hours we were obliged to wait. A climb of nearly 1,000 

 feet up a sledge-track brought us to meadows where the 

 hay had just been cut ; we now overlooked the lower hills, 

 and had a good view of the finely-shaped peaks which 

 stand in a semicircle round the head-waters of the Ardon, 

 and of an icy mass to the west which we could not then 

 recognise. We returned to the station, to find the expected 

 horses arrived and resting. At last we got them put to, 

 and started. The valley was much narrower ; castles 

 peered at one another, like the cat and the mouse on the 

 Eihine, from wooded knolls ; and the road was driven into 

 close companionship with the foaming torrent by steep 

 banks clothed in deciduous forest trees. We gained fre- 

 quent glimpses up lateral glens to the higher snow-streaked 

 ranges on the south. 



Our horses were tired, and it was dark before we reached 

 the fourth station, fifty miles from Kutais. It was a 

 wretched place, but there was no alternative ; so we 

 stopped, and were ushered into a small room, clean, but 

 furnished only with a long bench. Ham was the only 

 food we could procure ; the posthouse itself supplied 

 neither tea, coffee, nor wine, but we got some very 

 strange effervescing drink, said to be made from grajjes, 

 at the village store. Although Caucasian posthouses 

 differ too much in their size and internal fittings to 

 admit of any very accurate general description, they 



