The Kingdom of Georgia: Notes of travel in a land of women, wine, and song — Themes and Context

There were four of us--two Frenchmen, an Italian, and an Englishman. We had ridden from Damascus to Baalbek, and had seen the ruins; after dinner, we were lying on heaps of cushions on the floor, in a hostelry little known to Europeans. For some minutes the bubbling of our narghilés was the only sound that broke the stillness of the night. Then the ex-cuirassier spoke out in a strong voice--the voice of a man accustomed to command--"Gentlemen! I propose that we solemnly pass a vote of censure on the late M. de Lamartine." "Bravo!" was our unanimous cry; and the vote was carried, nemine contradicente. A rider was added, to the effect that poets should be discouraged from writing books of travel.

"Surely a strange proceeding!" says the reader. Let me explain. We had been shut up in Damascus for a long time by heavy snow-storms which blocked the roads; the most interesting book we had was Lamartine's "Voyage en Orient," and we had read the long description of Baalbek over and over again, until we almost knew it by heart. Need I say that the reality disappointed us? If we had never read Lamartine's book, we should have been delighted with the place; but having read it, we wanted the poet's eyes in order to see the temples as he saw them.

But what has all this to do with Georgia? Simply this: the following pages are not written by a poet, and, gentle sir, if you ever pass a vote of censure on the writer of them, it will not be for the reason that he has painted things and places in a rose-coloured atmosphere.

In publishing these notes I have had but one object--to excite the curiosity of my fellow-countrymen; the means of gratifying this curiosity are indicated in the bibliographical section. Georgia is practically unknown to the British public; well-educated people know that the country is famous for its beautiful women, but they are not very sure whether those charming creatures live under Persian, Turkish, or Russian rule, while not one person in a thousand knows that the Georgians and Circassians are distinct peoples.

If you suggest that Transcaucasia is a good place for a holiday, you meet with a look of blank astonishment--it is just as if you had said the Sooloo Islands, or Vladivostok. When you explain that Georgia is now a part of the Russian Empire, you hear stereotyped remarks about police and passports. The intending visitor need have no anxiety on this score; even in Moscow a foreigner is seldom or never put to any inconvenience, in the Caucasus he almost forgets that he has such a thing as a passport.

There is no reason why Georgia should not become as popular a resort as Norway or Switzerland. It is not so far away as people imagine--you can go from London to Tiflis, overland, in a week; it is at least as beautiful as either of the countries just named; it has the great advantage of being almost unknown to tourists; there is none of the impudent extortion which ruffles our tempers nearer home, and it is, after all, a cheaper place to travel in than Scotland. All these circumstances ought to have an influence on the holiday-maker in search of health and recreation.

The botanist, the geologist, the archæologist, the philologist will all find there mines of rich materials yet unknown to their respective sciences. The mountaineer knows the country already, through Mr. Freshfield's excellent book; the sportsman knows it too, thanks to Mr. Wolley. Artists will get there a new field for the brush, the pencil, and the camera. But, after all, Georgia's chief attraction lies in its people; the Georgians are not only fair to look upon, but they are essentially a lovable people; it is a true proverb that says, "The Armenian's soul is in his head, the Georgian's in his eyes;" to live among such gay, open-hearted, open-handed, honest, innocent folk is the best cure for melancholy and misanthropy that could well be imagined.

The language will occur to most people as a difficulty. Either Russian or Georgian carries the traveller from the Black Sea to the Caspian, even Turkish is pretty well known; in the larger towns one can always find hotels where French or German is understood, and where interpreters can be hired. Those who have travelled know that a very slight knowledge of a language is sufficient for all practical purposes, and such a knowledge of Georgian could be picked up in a week or so; Russian is more difficult, both in grammar and pronunciation. It may be a consolation to some, to know that a lady, Mme. Carla Serena, who travelled alone, and spent a long time in the wildest part of the Caucasus, could not speak a dozen words of Russian or Georgian.

Let me clearly repeat what I said in the first paragraphs of this preface: in the following plain, matter-of-fact record of travel my aim has not been to give immediate pleasure, but rather to show how and where pleasure may be obtained. Autumn is the best season for a visit, and spring is the next best time.

My hearty thanks are due to Mr. W. R. Morfill, for his kindness in reading through the chapters on the history and literature of Georgia.

Oxford, September, 1888.

In transcribing proper names I have tried to preserve the original orthography as far as possible.

a should be pronounced as in father. e should be pronounced like a in made. i should be pronounced as in machine. u should be pronounced as in rude. ch should be pronounced as in church. kh should be pronounced like ch in Scottish and German. s should be pronounced as in sun. z should be pronounced as in amaze. g should be pronounced as in gun. y should be pronounced as in yellow

PAGE Batum to Tiflis 1 Tiflis 8 The Georgian Military Road between Tiflis and Vladikavkaz 34 The Kakhetian Road--Tiflis to Signakh 69 Signakh 78 A Trip across the Alazana 83 Signakh to Telav, and thence to Tiflis 100 The History of Georgia 113 The Language and Literature of Georgia 136 The Political Condition of the Kingdom of Georgia 155

Bibliography 171 Statistics 197 Specimens of Georgian Vocal Music 201

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A few illustrations and the map at the end of the volume are not available in the scan-set used to prepare this ebook. Several other illustrations still contain the perforated library markings.

Tiflis Frontispiece Maps of Transcaucasian Railway and Military Road To face page 1 A Georgian Wrestler 30 Saint Nina 40 Ananur 46 Dariel Fort and Ruins of Tamara's Castle 62 Dariel 64 Vladikavkaz 66 An Arba 73 A Street in Signakh 80 Georgian National Costume 84 The City Wall, Telav 108 Queen Tamara 114 Irakli II 124 Rustaveli 139 Prince Ilia Chavchavadze 150 Prince Ivané Machabeli 153 Bishop Gabriel of Kutaïs 154 Map of Georgia At the end.

THE KINGDOM OF GEORGIA.

One morning in April, 1887, after a five days' passage from Odessa, we entered the harbour at Batum.

Batum (Hôtel Imperial, Hôtel de France, Hôtel d'Europe) is a town of 10,000 inhabitants, mostly Georgians; it consists of an ancient Asiatic quarter, dirty and tumble-down looking, and a European one only seven years old. Its situation at the foot of the mountains is lovely beyond all description. The place has a decidedly "Far West" look about it, everything seems half-finished; the streets are broad and, with a few exceptions, unpaved, the depth of the mud varies from three or four inches to half a yard, heaps of rotting filth furnish food for numerous pigs, and in the best thoroughfares ducks find convenient lakes on which to disport themselves.

I took an early opportunity of presenting myself at the British Vice-Consulate, a small, two-storey cottage, the lower half of which is of brick, the upper of corrugated iron sheets. Mr. Demetrius R. Peacock, the only representative of British interests in the Caucasus, is a man whose services deserve fuller recognition. It would be hard to find a post where more diplomatic tact is required, yet he contrives to make himself respected and admired by all the many races with which he is in daily contact. Mr. Peacock was born in Russia, and has spent most of his life in that empire, but he is nevertheless a thorough Englishman. In Tiflis I heard a good story about him. On one occasion the French Consul-General jokingly said to him, "Why, Peacock, you are no Englishman, you were born in Russia." To which our representative replied, "Our Saviour was born in a stable, but for all that He did not turn out a horse."

Although Batum is not very attractive as a town, it is at any rate far preferable to Poti or Sukhum, and it has undoubtedly a splendid future before it. Even at the present time the exports amount to nearly 400,000 tons, chiefly petroleum, manganese ores, wool, cotton, maize, tobacco, wine, fancy woods, &c. It is essentially a city of the future; and its inhabitants firmly believe that it will yet be a powerful rival of Odessa in trade, and of the Crimean coast-towns as a watering-place. At present we should hardly recommend it to invalids; the marshes round about are gradually being drained; but they still produce enough malaria to make the place dangerous to Europeans; the drinking-water, too, is bad.

The harbour is fairly well sheltered, but rather small; yet, to the unprofessional eye, there seems no reason why it might not easily be enlarged if necessary. The entrance is protected by a fortification in the form of an irregular rectangle, lying on the S.W. corner of the bay, behind the lighthouse. The earthworks, about seventy or eighty feet high, and lined with masonry, cover a piece of ground apparently about 300 paces long by 180 paces broad; a broad-gauge railway surrounds the fortress. When I was there the work was being pushed forward very rapidly, and preparations were being made to fix a heavy gun close to the lighthouse--at that time there were only about a dozen guns of small calibre in position.

In the town there is absolutely nothing to attract the stranger's attention; a few mosques and churches, petroleum refineries, half a dozen European shops, some half-finished public buildings, and the embryo of a public garden on the shore serve as an excuse for a walk; but if the traveller happens to hit upon a spell of wet weather, he will soon have seen all he wants to see of Batum, and will get out of its atmosphere of marsh gas and petroleum as soon as possible.

The only daily train leaves at eight o'clock in the morning; the station, although it is a terminus of so much importance, is a wretched wooden building, a striking contrast to the one at Baku, which would not disgrace our own metropolis. The railway skirts the sea for about thirty miles, and on the right lies a range of hills covered with a luxuriant growth of fine forest-trees and thick undergrowth gay with blossoms; in the neighbourhood of the town there are already many pretty villas. The rain of the previous few weeks had made the woods wonderfully beautiful, and the moist air was heavy with fragrance; I never saw such a wealth of plant life before. At Samtredi, where the lines from Batum and Poti meet, we leave Guri and Mingreli behind us and enter Imereti. On the left we now have a fine broad plain, and near us flows the Rion, the ancient Phasis. The country is far more thickly populated than Guri or Mingreli, or any other part of Trans-Caucasia, but it could easily support a much larger number if the ground were properly worked. I was amazed when I saw, for the first time, five pairs of oxen dragging one wooden plough, but the sight of this became familiar to me before I had lived long in Georgia. At the roadside stations (I need hardly say that our train stopped at all of them) I saw some fine faces--one poor fellow in a ragged sheepskin cloak quite startled me by his resemblance to Dante Alighieri. From the station of Rion, on the river of that name, a branch line runs northward to Kutaïs, none other than the Cyta in Colchis whence Jason carried off Medea and the Golden Fleece.

Kutaïs (Hôtel de France, Hôtel Colchide, Hôtel d'Italie) is a beautiful town of 25,000 inhabitants, almost all Georgians. The ruins of an old castle on the other side of the river show where the town stood a century ago, and from this point the best view of Kutaïs is obtained. Abundance of good building-stone, a rich soil, and plenty of trees, render the capital of Imereti a charming sight; its elevation of about 500 feet makes its atmosphere cool and bracing compared with that of the coast-towns. The traveller who wishes to become acquainted with Georgian town-life cannot do better than stay in Kutaïs a month or two. About five miles off is the monastery of Gelati, built in the tenth century, and renowned as the burial-place of the glorious Queen Tamara. From Kutaïs a journey may be made to Svaneti, the last Caucasian state conquered by Russia, and even now only nominally a part of the Tsar's dominions; Mr. Wolley's book, "Savage Svanetia," will give the intending visitor some idea of the sport that may be had in that wild region. The road across the Caucasus from Kutaïs to Vladikavkaz is much higher and wilder than the famous Dariel road, and I much regret that I had not time to travel by it.

Pursuing our journey from Rion to the eastward we soon reach Kvirili, which is about to be connected by a branch line of railway with Chiaturi, the centre of the manganese district; at present all the ore is carried down to the main line, a distance of twenty-five miles, in the wooden carts called arbas. Passing through glens of wondrous beauty, adorned with picturesque ruins of ancient strongholds, we at length arrive at the mountain of Suram, 3027 feet above Black Sea level, the watershed which separates the valley of the Kura, with its hot summers and cold winters, from the more temperate region drained by the Rion. The railway climbs very rapidly to the summit of the pass, but it comes down still more rapidly; there is a slope of one in twenty for a distance of a thousand feet; at the bottom is the town of Suram with its fine old castle. We now follow the course of the Kura all the way to Tiflis, passing Mikhailovo (whence a road runs to Borzhom, the most fashionable summer-resort in Trans-Caucasia) and Gori, a good-sized town, near which is the rock city of Uphlis Tsikhe. It is half past nine at night before Mtzkhet, the ancient capital of Georgia, is reached, and at a quarter past ten we enter Tiflis, ten hours from Kutaïs, and fourteen hours from Batum. Our journey is not yet ended, however, for it takes half an hour to drive from the station to the fashionable quarter of the town where the hotels are situated.

The best hotels are Kavkaz, Rossiya, London; all pretty good. If the traveller intends to make a prolonged stay, he can easily find furnished apartments and dine at a restaurant (e.g. the French Restaurant d'Europe, opposite the Palace). The best plan of all is to board with a Georgian family; but without good introductions it is somewhat difficult to do this. Although beef only costs 1-1/2d. a pound and chickens 2d. each, living is dear in Tiflis; the necessaries of life, except house-rent and clothing, are cheap, and one need not, like Alexandre Dumas, pay three roubles for having his hair cut, but the "extras" are heavy, and if the visitor is not disposed to spend his roubles with a free hand and a light heart, he will meet with a poor reception, for the Georgian hates nothing more than meanness, a vice from which he firmly believes Englishmen to be free.

Tiflis takes its name from the hot medicinal springs, for which it has been famous for fourteen centuries at least; in Georgian it is called Tphilisi, which philologists assert to be derived from a root akin to or identical with the Indo-European tep; the meaning of Toeplitz and Tiflis is thus the same. In the fifth century king Vakhtang Gurgaslan founded Tiflis, and began to build the Cathedral of Sion, which still stands in the midst of the city. The castle, situated on a high, steep rock, near the Kura, is older than the city itself, and its construction is attributed to the Persians. Tiflis has shared in all the triumphs and misfortunes which have befallen Georgia, and the history of the capital would only be a repetition of the history of the nation.

The city is built on both sides of the Kura, at an elevation of 1200 feet, between two ranges of steep, bare hills, which rise to a height of 2500 feet, and hem it in on all sides, thus it lies at the bottom of a deep rock basin, and this accounts for the terrible heat which renders it such an unpleasant dwelling-place in July and August. The river Kura is crossed by several fine bridges, the best of which is named after Prince Vorontsov, who during his governorship did great things for Trans-Caucasia, and gained for himself the lasting gratitude of all the peoples committed to his care. The population of 105,000 consists not only of Georgians, but of Russians (civil servants and soldiers), Armenians (traders and money-lenders), Persians, Tatars, and a few Europeans, viz. Germans (colonists from Suabia), Frenchmen (milliners, hotel-keepers), &c. Although the English residents might be counted on one's fingers, it seems a pity that her Majesty's Consulate should have been closed in 1881; surely Great Britain has in Georgia interests at least equal to those of France, Germany, Belgium, and the other nations which have representatives in Tiflis.

The effect which Tiflis produces on the mind of the stranger is perfectly unique; its position, its surroundings, the varied nature of its street-life, the gaiety and simplicity of its social life, all combine to form a most powerful and most pleasurable impression. If the reader will mentally accompany me, I shall take him through some of the more interesting quarters, and endeavour to give him some idea of the place. First of all, starting from the fashionable district called Salalaki, let us climb the rocky road which leads to the ruins of the castle, whence we obtain the finest view of the city. The best time to enjoy the panorama is evening, and in summer no one would ever think of making the toilsome ascent much before sunset. From these crumbling walls one looks over a vast expanse of house-tops and church spires, through the midst of which winds the muddy Kura. At our feet lies the old town, a labyrinth of narrow, crooked streets, stretching from the square of Erivan down to the waterside, where stands the Cathedral of Sion. Quite near at hand the river becomes very narrow, and advantage of this circumstance has been taken by building a bridge, which leads to the citadel of Metekh (now used as a prison) and the large Asiatic quarter called Avlabar. On this side of the river, forming a continuation of the range of hills on which we are standing, rises the Holy Mount (Mtatsminda), and perched high up near its summit is the pretty white church of St. David, behind which rises a wall of bare, black rock; half-way between it and the river is the Governor's palace, with its extensive gardens, just at the beginning of the Golovinskii Prospekt, a long boulevard with fine shops and public buildings; between the boulevard and the river lies the Municipal Garden, named after Alexander I. Turning our eyes towards the other side of the Kura, beyond Avlabar, we see, on the hill facing St. David's, a large block of buildings used as a military depôt, arsenal, and barracks, and still farther on, on the river bank, is a thick green belt which we recognize as the gardens of Mikhailovskaya Street, ending in the splendid park called Mushtaïd. Crossing the ridge, we now turn our back on the city and descend into the Botanical Garden, situated in a sheltered ravine, a delightful place for an evening stroll; on the opposite side of the ravine is a Tatar village with a lonely graveyard.