178 THE GEOKGIAN II ILL-COUNTRY. 



Poti bj a Russian lady, wlio was coming to live with lier 

 daughter at Tiflis. He described the state of the road as 

 something awful : for half the distance they had found no 

 post-horses, and had been obliged to pay high prices for 

 peasants' animals, brought in from the fields to meet the 

 demand. The mud was very bad, but not so deep as it 

 had been a few days before, when a Russian family, whom 

 he met at the third station from Kutais, had been obliged 

 to have their carriage dragged for one stage by bullocks, 

 and had taken twelve hours to accomplish sixteen versts. 

 These unlucky people, who did not care to pay for extra 

 horses, had taken five days to get over the hundred 

 miles between Tiflis and the station where Moore found 

 them. With our previous experience, we were rather dis- 

 mayed to hear that our friend had left one of his port- 

 manteaus at Kutais in charge of an ofiicial, to be for- 

 warded, and our fears were justified by its non-arrival for 

 three days after it was due. On its appearance our 

 preparations were quickly made, and our ' tarantasse ' was 

 ordered to come to the hotel at 1 o'clock on the after- 

 noon of the 26th June. 



Two days after we reached Tiflis Paul had declared 

 himself ill, and, to our great embarrassment, had taken to 

 his bed ; he had never entirely recovered his wetting at 

 Djelaloghlu, and was now suffering from a kind of inter- 

 mittent fever. We felt sure that if we could get him well 

 enough to go up with us to the Kazbek posthouse, a week's 

 rest in mountain air would restore his strength ; but his 

 illness was a great discouragement, just at the moment 

 when we were starting for the portion of the journey in 

 which his services were most indispensable. The doctor, 

 whom we sent for, had recoiu-se to the Russian panacea, 

 leeches, which in this case did not do much good, and it 

 was by frequent doses of our own quinine that the patient 

 was finally brought into a condition to travel. 



