THE RIVER KUR. 
Ill 
these two celebrated floods at the moment of junction. The 
clear and green waters of the Aragua formed a brilliant contrast 
to the heavy and sombre wave of the Kur, as they dashed into 
its bosom. But the union was instantaneous. And the mightier 
flood of Cyrus rolled onward with its tributary stream unaltered 
in colour, with the same proud solemnity of course. 
The source of this famous river has been supposed, in almost 
as many different places as there have been writers to discuss 
the question. Strabo, will have it to rise in Armenia; Pliny, in 
the Tartaric Scythian mountains; and Ptolemy, in Colchis, the 
modern Immeretia. Chardin would find its spring amongst the 
Caucasus; and subsequent observations have proved him so far 
right, that its source has been traced to the mountains that 
bound the province of Akiska westward, and which are a rami¬ 
fication of the Caucasus, though so distant from the great parent 
stem. From the recesses of this Akiskan branch, issue several 
small rivulets, which, uniting into one channel at some little 
distance from Agalzhicke, takes the name of Kur; and, flowing 
thence through part of the Turkish dominions, gradually 
augments its stream by the reception of minor rivers in its 
course. Although its windings are various, its main direction is 
generally to the eastward, passing through deep valleys, and one 
or two extensive plains, in its way to the town of Mskett. 
Having paid its tribute to those venerable towers, the progress of 
a few wersts brings it to other ruins; to the successor of the 
royal dignities, which once gave distinction to those towers ; to 
what was the new capital of Georgia. Its once lofty battlements, 
now crumbling to decay, mix their superb fragments with the 
less ostentatious works of modern military art; and Tiflis, though 
no longer the magnificent residence of Asiatic princes, is yet the 
