MSCHETI. 97 



shows two summits, of which the eastern is evidently the 

 higher. We fancied it looked loftier than any Alpine 

 peak from a similar point of view, and made ourselves 

 happy with the belief that it was too large to be in- 

 accessible on all sides. We descended to a pretty village, 

 surrounded by vines trailed in the Italian fashion, and 

 enlivened by a large encampment of railway workmen, a 

 motley and picturesque crowd of Persians, Georgians, 

 Kurds, and Russians — each nationality easily distinguish- 

 able by its peculiar dress. 



We now entered a fine defile ; the Kur, a smooth swift 

 stream, flowed beneath us in a deep bed, with cliff's on 

 either side, perforated by numerous rock-tombs, for which 

 the most inaccessible positions had been chosen. Where 

 the Dariel road comes in from the north, over a lofty 

 bridge, stands the posthouse of Mscheti, the first out of 

 Tiflis. The large building, with its extensive stabling, 

 looked so imposing in the dusk, that Fran9ois fancied he 

 must be at home again, and wanted Paul to ascertain the 

 hour of the tahle-cVluUc. We had already driven eighty- 

 eight miles, and, wishing to make our entry into Tiflis by 

 daylight, determined to sleep here, as we found we could 

 get some dinner, and hire mattrasses. 



May 14th. — We had a drive of twenty versts (or nearly 

 fourteen miles) between us and Tiflis ; the first part was 

 exceedingly rough, as the new road and the railway were 

 both in course of construction, and the space between the 

 river and the hill being limited, carriages had for the time 

 some difficulty to get along anywhere. Mscheti, surround- 

 ed, after the fashion of the country, by battlemented walls, 

 stands on the left bank of the Kur, in a fine situation 

 above the junction of the stream which comes down from 

 the Krestowaja Gora. Once a large and floiu-ishing town, 

 it is now decayed, but contains a curious church, in which 



H 



