FOREST SCEXEEY. 241 



consequent on the pursuit in wliicli lie was engaged 

 aroused me ; once awake, to sleep again was impossible, 

 and we all lay tossing and growling until morning put an 

 end to our tortures. 



The day was again fine. The view from Glola. down the 

 valley towards the Schoda chain, was very striking, and in 

 the opposite direction rose the two peaks of Adai Khokh, 

 grandly defiant as ever. We had no unpleasantness at 

 parting, and flattered ourselves — alas ! how vainly — that 

 our difficulties with uncivil and extortionate villaofers were 

 over, and that henceforth we should be free from those 

 petty vexations which destroy half the pleasure of travel. 

 Having recrossed the same bridge, and rejoined the new 

 road, which does not pass through Glola, we soon again 

 entered the heart of the primeval forest, where the 

 overhanging arch of foliage entirely shaded us from the 

 sunshine ; the woodcutter's axe seldom thins these glades, 

 for the needs of the scanty population of the upper valley 

 are small, and the lower district of the Eadscha, between 

 here and Kutais, is so richly wooded that no one has 

 occasion to come here for timber. The passer-by may 

 see illustrated the whole life of a tree, from its first stage 

 to the last : the cone just dropped on the ground, the 

 tender sapling, the forest giant spreading its branches in 

 every direction, and the trunk, broken and rotten, pros- 

 trate on the ground and gradually mouldering away into 

 the soil, from which a fresh generation will soon spring. 



A sharp hour's walk below Glola brought us to the 

 mouth of the narrow defile through which the collected 

 waters of the Rion basin make their escape. Three 

 streams join to form the river just above the gorge : the 

 largest, the true source of the Rion, comes down the 

 western arm of the valley, from the mountains behind 

 Gebi ; the Glola-Squali, known also by the less euphon- 



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