382 PATIGORSK. 



conducted into a clumsily-liewn basin, capable of containing 

 six persons at a time. At niglit they returned to the 

 adjacent fortress, under the escort of a strong armed force ; 

 for the country was still kept in alarm by continual raids 

 of the Tcherkesses, who found the trade of catching and 

 obtaining ransoms for prisoners as lucrative as the Nea- 

 2)olitan brigands do at the present day. As the historian 

 of the waters naively remarks, it is easy to imagine that, 

 perfect repose of mind being an essential part of the cure, 

 the patients did not benefit by it as much as they might 

 have done under more favourable circumstances. Still, 

 despite all hindrances, the popularity of the springs in- 

 creased, and so early as 1811, two hundred Russian 

 families were drawn together to the spot. 



In 1812, an employe at Constantinogorsk built the two 

 first houses on the site where Patigorsk now stands. In 

 1829 the transfer of the ofiicial portion of the population 

 of Georgievsk to Stavropol gave a new impulse to the 

 growth of Patigorsk, which received many of the former 

 inhabitants of Georgievsk, a town in an unhealthy situa- 

 tion, only occupied on account of its supposed strategic im- 

 portance. In 1819 the first regular bath-house was erected. 

 Between this date and 1830, the town as it now stands 

 was created — partly by imperial ukases and grants, partly 

 by the favour and influence of successive governors of 

 the province. It was during this period that the hotel, 

 the public gardens, the bath-buildings, and the roads in 

 the neighbourhood, were for the most part constructed. 

 In 1837 the Emperor Nicholas visited the Caucasus, 

 and made an annual grant of 8,000 roubles for the main- 

 tenance and improvement of the bathing establishment. 



Patigorsk is the centre of the group of mineral springs, 

 and the point on which the Government has concen- 

 trated its efforts to create a national bathing-place. 



