TIFLIS. 
115 
our papers of health, we were allowed to proceed, without further 
detention, towards the gates of the city. Having entered them, 
(with the feeling of one going into the cave of Trophonius,) I 
took up my quarters at the house of Khoja Aratoon, an Arme¬ 
nian, whose father had served, as treasurer, several of our envoys 
and ambassadors, when resident at the court of Persia, I was 
well pleased to hear the first information communicated to me 
by my host, that the Governor of Georgia, General Yarmolloff, 
was returned to Tiflis, from his embassy to the Persian monarch • 
and, accordingly, next morning, I presented myself to His Ex¬ 
cellency, and delivered my letters. His reception was in no 
respect like the gloom of his capital, and the sunshine within, 
soon spread its influence without doors. 
Tiflis is distant from St. Petersburgh 2627 wersts, in 42° 45' 
N. lat., and 62° 40f' E. long, according to Russian calculation, 
Chardin has placed it in lat. 43° and long. 64°. Rut Captain Mon- 
teith, of the Madras engineers, from an observation, found its 
latitude to be 41° 43'. The city has no claim to an antiquity 
beyond the lapse of a few centuries; having been founded in 
the year 1063, by the Tzar Liewvang, who wished to derive 
personal benefit from certain warm springs in its neighbourhood. 
Till that period, it could boast no habitation in the form of a 
house; unless, perhaps, a few mud-hovels for the convenience 
of the occupiers of a small fortress, which stood on an adjacent 
height, and protected the valley. The remains of this ancient 
bulwark are still to be seen on a hill to the south of the town, 
at some distance from the station of the more modern citadel, 
of Turkish origin. The position of the old work of the native 
Tzars, completely commanded the road along the western bank 
of the Kur ; and its dark and frowning towers, lonely as thev 
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