ABASTUMAX. 471 



be a very short one. The direct horse-road to Abastuuian 

 crosses the spur on Avhich the fortress is built, turns up 

 into the hills, and after a long ascent — which in parts re- 

 minded us of Syria, except that the features of the surround- 

 ing landscape were on a larger scale — reaches the top of a 

 wide down, covered with cornfields and dotted with vil- 

 lages, the inhabitants of which, picturesque Turks dressed 

 in the brightest colours, were enjo3dng a midday rest from 

 field labour, clustered m groups, any one of which would 

 have made the fortune of the artist who faithfully repro- 

 duced it. 



From the heights we had gained, we looked down on a 

 wide basin of cornland, with numerous villages, which, by 

 a judicious arrangement of the frontier-lme, have been just 

 included within the Russian Empire. The rounded hills 

 rising beyond it are in Turkish territorj^, and a long day's 

 ride over them would brings the traveller to the R-ate of 

 Kars. The view at the present season was very striking ; 

 the valleys and cultivated slo^^es stood thick with corn, 

 and shone golden in the cloudless sunshine, and the far- 

 spreading downs above them seemed to bask in the uni- 

 versal blaze of Hght and heat. We crossed several deep 

 hollows, and passed a large village surrounded by fruit- 

 trees, before descending finally to the banks of a little 

 stream, just where it issued from the wooded limestone 

 chain. The road henceforth follows the water through a 

 narrow windmg glen, clothed in firs, where an old castle, 

 perched like an eagle on a lofty crag, looks down on the 

 passers-by. The scenery is no more than pretty, and its 

 features seemed puny and tame compared to the wide 

 landscape we had just left. 



The bathing village of Abastuman is entered almost be- 

 fore it is seen ; it consists of a row of houses along the 

 roadside, one of which — very unlike most Russian build- 



