TURKISH MONUMENTS. 
125 
Besides the peculiar pleasure, to a military taste, in viewing 
the remains and situation of the citadel and other works, the 
valley behind the public baths, which leads to the most con¬ 
siderable of the ruins, possesses picturesque and interesting 
objects in itself. In following the windings of this wide moun¬ 
tain cleft, for some distance, we were imperceptibly led into a 
deep chasm, whose dark granite sides were broken into abrupt 
shelves, over which rush the waters of a lofty cascade, tumbling, 
with great noise, into a bed of rocks beneath. Thence it flows, 
murmuring along, by the base of the fortress, till it unites 
with the broader stream of the Kur. The immediately-sur¬ 
rounding objects mingle more beauty with the sublime, than 
the first approach to Tiflis had given us to expect in any part of 
its adjacent scenery. Many of the cliffs are richly covered with 
trees and shrubs, and carry the delighted eye through rocky and 
umbrageous intricacies, to the shining promontory, over which 
shoot the waters of the fall. Still we look upward, and see the 
mountain of the citadel, crowned with its mouldering towers. 
Near to the more southern side of the mountain, we found a 
small spot of rising ground, covered with graves and other 
funeral monuments. They were those of the Turks, who pos¬ 
sessed this province some centuries ago, and were crumbling 
into dust, in awful sympathy with the prouder relics of departed 
life and greatness, in those of their ancient fortress on the 
heights above. Amongst these decaying mansions of the dead, 
five tombs, eminently distinguished by their dimensions and 
architecture, still stand quite entire. They are square buildings 
of brick, curiously put together, and ornamented on the outside 
with chequered and lozenged fretwork, in various compart¬ 
ments and projecting friezes, cut in the brick. Each tomb has 
