122 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
discussing family anecdotes, or little scandals of their acquaint¬ 
ance ; and, not unfrequently, laying as entertaining grounds of 
retaliation, by the arrangement of some little intrigue of their 
own. For, I am told, there are days in the week when any lady 
may engage the bath for herself alone, or with any other party 
she may choose to introduce as her companion. The good dame 
who was our conductress, I understood, is never backward in 
preparing such accommodation. 
Within these twenty years, the higher ranks of the inhabitants 
of Tiflis have gradually lost much of their Asiatic manners ; and 
it was a change to be expected, from their constant intercourse 
with the civil and military officers of the European empire, to 
which they had become a people. Such changes are not always 
at their earliest stage properly understood by the persons who 
adopt them; hence, nations who have been long in a state of 
vassalage, when they first break from their chains, usually 
mistake licence for liberty ; and, in like manner, the fair in¬ 
mates of an Eastern harem, when first allowed to show their 
faces to other men than their husbands, may, perhaps, be 
excused, if they think that the veil of modesty can no longer be 
of any use. Amongst the lower orders in Tiflis, the effect of 
European companionship has been yet more decided. Owing 
to the numbers of Russian soldiers, who, from time to time, 
have been quartered in their houses, the customary lines of 
separation in those houses could no longer be preserved; and 
their owners were obliged to submit to the necessity of their 
wives being seen by their stranger guests. The morals of a 
soldier, with regard to women, are seldom rigid; and these 
gentlemen, not making an exception to the rule, made the best 
of the opportunities afforded them by the occasional absence of 
