A DILETTANTE IN THE CAUCASUS. 219 



which I had always associated with a dry and burnt climate. 

 However, when it stops it stops, which is a great advantage. 1 

 had occasion to go westwards from Tiflis, and near the shores of 

 the Black Sea the rain is really bad ; in fact, Batum, in par- 

 ticular, is notorious for its rainy climate, which has earned it an 

 unenviable nickname. I had to face a lot more rain before I 

 reached the blessed haven of a blazing sun. 



Travelling in the Transcaucasus Kailway was not the height 

 of comfort, at all events, west of Tiflis. There were no sleeping- 

 cars and no linen available ; it was only by a lucky chance that 

 room to lie down could be secured, and the heat was oppressive. 

 It was also noticeable that stops at stations at mealtimes were 

 limited to five minutes ; the times of arrival and departure were 

 inconvenient, and it seemed to me that this was specially 

 arranged, with a fiendish ingenuity, with the express object of 

 annoying me. I had occasion twice to go to Kutais, an important 

 town, centre of a Government, and yet it is off the main line. 

 It is necessary to change at Eion, and then spend an hour on a 

 branch line. All trains contrive to stop at Rion at an impossible 

 hour of the night, and about an hour is lost there waiting ; so it 

 is evident that a journey to or from Kutais involves a sleepless 

 night. But it is worth it, as Kutais is an interesting town. 

 Tiflis has been razed so often by numerous invaders — the last 

 time being barely a hundred years ago, when the Persians 

 sacked it — that few antiquities are left. The archaeologist 

 curious in Georgian antiquities comes to Kutais. Tradition 

 associates the town with " Kites," the home of iEthus and 

 Medea, the destination of Jason and his Argonauts. The first 

 authentic record in history occurs in Procopius, who refers to it 

 in connection with the Greco-Punic wars of the sixth century. 

 According to Grazius, it was founded by the Abkhaz emperor, 

 Levan ; but probably he merely improved an existing city. In 

 1666 the Turks overran Imeritia, of which Kutais is the chief 

 town, and seized all the strongholds. They destroyed the old 

 cathedral of the Abkhaz-Kartelian emperor, Bagrat III (980- 

 1024) ; but the ruins are still fine, and its carvings and 

 ornamentation of great interest. The carvings are very 

 numerous, in very bold relief, in a local freestone. The pre- 

 vailing form of ornament is a conventional vine, with compli- 



