BORJOM, 467 



The scenery is exceedingly pretty ; tlie Kur flows in a 

 clear rapid stream along tlie bottom of tlie glen, the sides 

 of which, broken here and there by masses of crag, are 

 clothed in thick pinewoods. Beside the road grow copses 

 of the wild rose, which is indigenous to this country. 

 Borjom is situated at the point where the Kur receives a 

 small tributary flowing from the eastern hills. The grand- 

 ducal villa, a modern construction in the chalet style, is 

 on the left bank of the river ; the hills rise immediately 

 behind it, in steep slopes. Borjom itself is on the further 

 side of the Kur, which is here crossed by a substantial 

 bridge. The village is of quite modern date, and consists 

 of a few shops and a number of low cottage residences 

 with large verandahs, in which their occupants seem to 

 pass the greater portion of their existence. The mineral 

 spring, the waters of which are of a ferruginous character, 

 bursts out of the ground in a lateral glen watered by a 

 small stream, and overhung by lofty cliffs. A bath-house 

 has been built, and the grounds in the neighbourhood laid 

 out in lawns and garden-walks. 



Borjom, owing to its being the chosen retreat of the 

 Grand Duke, has become the most aristocratic of the 

 Caucasian bathing-places, and a recent Russian writer 

 goes so far as to call it the Baden-Baden of the East, and 

 to reproach it with excessive luxury and extravagance, a 

 charge which certainly did not suggest itself to our minds. 

 We were driven to the front-door of a large building at 

 the mouth of the ravine in which the source is situated, 

 and had already alighted, when a domestic stepped forward 

 and informed us that that part of the building was reserved 

 for ' les hauts employes,' information which did not im- 

 press us with so deep a sense as he seemed to expect of 

 the impropriety of which we had been guilty. Having 

 been driven round to a side-door, we were nllowed to enter, 



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