A DILETTANTE IN THE CAUCASUS. 223 



must be a grand sight when in flower. There is a lot of 

 malaria; apart from the mosquitoes, the curse of the district is 

 Cimex lectularius. 



My host was a typical Gurian. He owned some 20,000 acres 

 or more, but was far from rich ; his house, built entirely of 

 wood, like almost all houses in Guria, stood on rising ground 

 which had been cleared of forest, and commanded a splendid 

 view of the sea and the valley of the river Notanebi, beyond 

 which the Adjar crest rose to the snow. In the distance Batum 

 was clearly visible, and on a clear day the mountains round 

 Trebizond can be seen. He was one of the minority who could 

 speak Bussian, and it was pleasant to sit and smoke and sip tea 

 in the balmy, evening air, listening to the chorus of the Frogs 

 and howling of the Jackals. It was a very peaceful scene, and 

 seemed far from the turmoil and distress of war. As we looked 

 over the calm waters of the Black Sea, we tried to conjure up 

 the hideous scenes that were being enacted at its other end. 

 We discussed the downfall of a tottering empire that had planted 

 itself as an exotic growth on the threshold of Europe. But that 

 empire was a mushroom upstart; the Georgian empire had 

 existed for centuries, when the Turk first came to challenge 

 Christendom. 



After the moist and humid climate of the hilly region of 

 Guria, surrounded by lofty mountains, it is an abrupt change 

 to the plains of Azerbaidjan. East of Tiflis the valley of the 

 Kura opens out into a broad steppe, extending right to the 

 Caspian, and in the south to the plains of northern Persia — it is, 

 in fact, a piece of Asia, and typically Asiatic. The country is 

 dead flat ; in the clear morning air the snow-clad sierra of 

 Daghestan is visible in the north, and the rounded heights of 

 Karabagh in the south. Otherwise the only break in the horizon 

 is a series of low, escarped bills, running east and west between 

 Nukha and Evlakh, called Boz Dagh, or the Grey Mountain. In 

 every direction, as far as the eye can reach, unending plains 

 fading away on the horizon, broken by an occasional clump of 

 trees or mosquito tower. The. soil is a fine, grey clay, from 

 which the waves of the Caspian have receded only in quite 

 recent times ; in places there are expanses of saltings, but 

 where irrigation has been carried out by the natives, the fertile 



