Part 3

Mushtaid, the town garden, owes nearly all its charms to nature, the walks and open spaces are neatly kept, but nearly the whole area is a forest in the recesses of which we may lie undisturbed for hours, looking down on the turbid waters of Kura and listening to the rustling of the leaves above and around. Every evening its avenues are crowded with carriages and horsemen; beautiful faces, tasteful toilettes, gay uniforms all combine to form a charming picture. Fancy fairs are occasionally held, at which the visitor may mingle with all the social celebrities, lose his money in raffles, buy things he doesn't want--in short enjoy himself just as if he were at home. But I doubt whether many frequenters of bazaars in England have seen such an acrobatic feat as was performed in Mushtaid last summer; an individual in tights hung himself by the neck on the upper end of an inclined wire, stretched over the heads of the spectators, and slid down it at lightning speed, firing half a dozen pistol-shots as he went. No week passes without a popular fête of some kind, for the Georgians are as fond of gaiety as any nation in the world.

From the above brief sketch the reader will see that Tiflis is a city where one can live for a long time without suffering from ennui. Although the immediate neighbourhood looks bare and uninviting, there are, within a few miles, many beautiful spots well worth a visit. The climate has been much abused by some writers, and it must be admitted that during the months of July and August the heat is very trying, but in my opinion Tiflis is a healthy place; since the great plague of ninety years ago it has been pretty free from epidemics, and although fever and dysentery kill a good many people every year, the victims are nearly all residents of low-lying parts of the city, where no European would live if he could help it. During the warm weather there are often storms, characterized by all the grandeur that might be expected in a region of great mountains so near the tropics; after one of these the steep streets become foaming torrents. The sheltered position of the city protects it from the terrible gusts of wind which make the plain to the eastward almost uninhabitable, and the storms seldom cause any more serious damage than broken windows and flooded houses. Hitherto all the town water was obtained from the Kura, and delivered to the consumer from bullock-skins, but a well has now been dug a little below St. David's, whence the dwellers on the right bank will get a supply of a liquid which is not tepid, not opaque, not evil-smelling, and not semi-solid.

THE GEORGIAN MILITARY ROAD BETWEEN TIFLIS AND VLADIKAVKAZ.

The part which rivers have played in the history of civilization is well illustrated by this road. The Aragva, flowing southward from Gudaur, and the Terek, running northward from it, have formed the highway along which countless crowds of Asiatics have penetrated into Europe. Between the two streams there is a distance of some ten miles, forming a huge but not insurmountable barrier, the virtual removal of which did not take place until our own times. It was General Yermolov who, in 1824, succeeded in making the road practicable for troops of all kinds; but from the poet Puskhin's "Journey to Erzerum" (1829), we learn that there was still room for improvement. The traveller had to go with a convoy of 500 soldiers and a cannon, he dare not lag behind for fear of the mountaineers, provisions and lodgings were scarce and bad, the roads were impassable for carriages, the rate of speed was sometimes only ten miles a day. When we read Pushkin's account, and the one given by Lermontov, in "A Hero of Our Times," we can only ask ourselves, "What was the road like before Yermolov?"

During the wars with Kasi-mullah and Shamil, it became indispensable to effect great improvements, and, at length, about five-and-twenty years ago, under the governorship of Prince Bariatinskii, the road was finished, and is now one of the finest in the world, besides being one of the highest--the Simplon is only 6147 feet above sea-level, while the Dariel road is nearly 2000 feet higher. The total distance from Tiflis to Vladikavkaz is 126 miles, and the distance can be done comfortably in less than twenty hours. During the summer 1150 horses are kept in readiness at the stations, in the winter the number is reduced by about 300. Two stage coaches start from each end every day, but as they run during the night also, much of the beauty of the scenery is lost by those who avail themselves of this mode of conveyance; besides, it is difficult to get an outside seat unless you book it a long time in advance. It is far better to travel by troïka, as you are then free to stop when you like and as long as you like, and you get an uninterrupted view of the country through which you pass.

About the middle of June, having previously obtained a formidable-looking document by which Alexander Alexandrovich, Autocrat of all the Russias, commanded all postmasters to supply me with horses immediately on demand, I set out on my journey over the frosty Caucasus, accompanied by a young Russian friend. The troïka had been ordered for four a.m., but, of course, it did not turn up till half-past five. For the information of those who have never been in Russia, I may say that a troïka is a team of three horses harnessed abreast in a vehicle of unique construction called a teliezhka. The form of the cart is like a longitudinal section of a beer barrel; it is large enough to contain an ordinary travelling trunk; it is of wood, has neither sides nor springs, and there are four wheels; the seat is made by slipping a piece of rope through a couple of rings on either side, and laying your cloak and a pillow on the rope; the driver sits on the front edge of the cart; the whole affair is invariably in the last stage of decay. The shafts are so long that the horses cannot kick the bottom out of the thing, and the horse in the centre has his head swung up in a wooden frame. The driver is always asleep or drunk, or both, but he never lets the reins fall, and at regular intervals mechanically applies the whip to his steeds; he only wakes up when there is a shaky bridge to cross, and, regardless of the notice "Walking pace!", first crosses himself and commends his soul to the saints, then gallops over the creaking structure at racing speed.

As we clattered down the steep rocky streets which lead to the Boulevard, I had not much time to look round; all my attention was necessary to preserve myself from falling out of the cart, the jolting was terrible. However, by the time we had got to the outskirts of the town the road became much smoother; the driver got down and released the clappers of the bells above the middle horse's head, and we rattled along merrily to the tune of eight miles an hour. Just outside the city an imposing cruciform monument marks the spot where the late Tsar's carriage was overturned without injuring his Majesty. Passing the Sakartvelo Gardens, where the good people of Tiflis often dine in vine-covered bowers by the river-side, we cross the Vera, an important tributary of the Kura, and then enter a broad plain which continues for many miles to the westward.

On the other side of the Kura we see Mushtaid; a little farther on is the pretty German colony of Alexandersdorf, with its poplar avenues, neat houses, and modest little white church. All the German colonies in the Caucasus seem to be exactly alike, and they do not in any respect differ from German villages in the fatherland; the colonists altogether ignore the people of the country in which they have settled, and, although they make a comfortable livelihood, their isolated condition and the absence of all European influence must make their lives very narrow and joyless. Some of these colonies were founded in order to set before the native peasantry examples of good agriculture and farm management, but this worthy object has not been attained, and the Teutons are looked upon with feelings generally of indifference, sometimes of positive ill-will. High on the hills behind the colony stands the white monastery of St. Antony, a favourite place for picnics. In the cliffs on the left of our road are numerous holes, variously conjectured to be troglodyte dwellings (like those at Uphlis Tsikhe), rock tombs, places of refuge in time of war, provision stores, &c. Before us we see the road winding up between the hills in a northerly direction, and after crossing the Transcaucasian railway and then the Kura we arrive at the post-house of Mtzkhet, not far from the village of that name.

Mtzkhet, if we are to believe local traditions, is one of the oldest cities on earth, for the story goes that it was founded by a great-grandson of the patriarch Noah. Be that as it may, there are unmistakable signs that a Greek or Roman town existed here at a remote date, and antiquaries generally agree in identifying Mtzkhet with the Acrostopolis of the Romans, the headquarters of Pompey after he had defeated Mithridates and subdued Iberia and Albania. No better spot could have been chosen, for its position at the junction of the Aragva and the Kura commands the two great roads of the country and makes it the key of Transcaucasia. Mtzkhet, the ancient capital of Georgia, was always a place of much importance in the annals of the kingdom; now it is a wretched village of some hundreds of inhabitants. It was here that St. Nina began her work of converting the nation, and we propose to give a brief account of the legends relating to this event.

Tradition says that at the beginning of our era there lived in Mtzkhet a wealthy Jew named Eleazar, who frequently made journeys to Jerusalem on business. On the occasion of one of these visits he became possessed of the tunic of our Lord, which he brought home with him as a present to his daughter. She, expecting a valuable gift, ran out to meet him, and with an angry expression snatched from his hands the precious relic, of which she little knew the worth; she fell dead on the spot, but no force could take the garment from her hands, so it was buried with her, and from her grave there soon grew up a tall cedar, from the bark of which oozed a fragrant myrrh, which healed the sick. Now about three centuries later, that is in the third century of our era, St. Nina was born in Cappadocia. When she was twelve years of age her parents proceeded to Jerusalem, and gave themselves up to religious work, leaving the maiden under the care of a devout old woman, who taught her to read the Scriptures. Nina was very anxious to learn what had become of Christ's tunic, and said to her teacher, "Tell me, I pray thee, where is that earthly purple of the Son of God now kept?" To which the venerable matron replied that it had been taken to a heathen land called Iveria, far away to the northward, and that it lay buried there in the city of Mtzkhet. One night the Blessed Virgin appeared to the damsel in a dream, and said to her, "Go to the Iverian land, preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, and He will reward thee. I will be thy guard and guide," and with these words she handed to her a cross made of vine branches. When Nina awoke and saw in her hands the wondrous cross she wept for joy, and after reverently kissing the holy gift she bound the two loose sticks together with her own long hair. This cross has always been the palladium of Georgia, and is still preserved in the Sion Cathedral at Tiflis. Now it so happened that at this time seven-and-thirty maidens, fleeing from the persecutions of Diocletian, left Jerusalem to spread the good tidings in Armenia; St. Nina went with them as far as Vashgarabada, and then pursued her journey alone. As she was entering the city of Mtzkhet, the king of Georgia, Marian, with all his people, went out to a hill in the neighbourhood to offer human sacrifices to idols, but in answer to her prayer a mighty storm arose and destroyed the images. She took up her abode in a cell in the king's garden, and soon became well-known as a healer of the sick. At length the queen fell ill, and St. Nina, having made her whole in the name of Jesus, converted the Georgian court to Christianity, and in 314 A.D. baptized all the people of the city. Over the spot in the royal garden where her cell had been, the king built the Samtavr church, which still exists, and lies to the left of the post-road. It was then revealed to St. Nina that the tunic, the object of her search, lay buried under a cedar in the middle of the town; the tree was cut down and the robe was found in the hands of the dead girl. On the spot where the cedar stood King Marian built, in 328, the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles; the cedar was replaced by a column, and this column is said to drip myrrh occasionally, even in these degenerate days of ours. The sacred garment was preserved in the cathedral until the seventeenth century, when Shah Abbas sent it as a present to the Tsar of Russia, Mikhail Fedorovich. It was solemnly deposited in the Cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow, where I saw it last autumn.

Having evangelized Kartli, St. Nina proceeded to Kakheti, where she met with the same success, and died at Bodbé, near Signakh; her tomb is in a monastery overlooking one of the finest landscapes in all Kakheti.

The Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles is the chief place of interest in Mtzkhet. The original church was of wood, but in 378 it was replaced by a stone edifice, which stood until the invasion of Tamerlane. The existing church was built in the fifteenth century. A stone wall, with ruined towers, encloses a rectangular piece of ground, in which stands the cathedral, a fine building about seventy paces long by twenty-five paces broad. It is in the Byzantine style, and the interior is divided into three parts by two rows of columns. Here lie buried the last kings of Georgia and their families, the patriarchs of the church, and other illustrious persons.

The post-house at Mtzkhet was a pleasant surprise to me, but I found nearly all the stations on this road equally comfortable; in many of them there are bed-rooms, a dining-room, a ladies' room, and one can get white bread and European food. Those who have travelled on post-roads in Russia will readily understand my surprise.

Leaving Mtzkhet, our road follows the Aragva along a smooth valley between forest-clad hills; the scenery reminded me very much of some of the dales of Thelemarken in Norway. The soil is rich and well cultivated, and here, as elsewhere, we saw a whole herd of oxen dragging one wooden plough. This valley is one of the most feverish places on the whole road, and the people attribute this to a yellow weed (Carlina arcaulis), of which there is a great abundance; strange to say, other places where the plant flourishes have the same unpleasant reputation for unhealthiness, the explanation is doubtless to be found in the fact that this weed grows best in a damp soil.

Tsilkani is the next station, but there is no village there. While waiting for horses we saw in the yard a camel; there are plenty of these amiable animals in Tiflis, but I did not think they went so far north as the Aragva.

The scenery continues to be of the same character as far as the station of Dushet, some distance from the garrison-town of that name, which lies in rectangular regularity on the hillside, like a relief map; it is a place of some military importance on account of its position at the entrance of the narrow part of the valley, but it is as uninteresting as any Russian provincial town. Near it is a lake, said to cover a Caucasian Sodom; the traveller looks at the lake with more attention than he would bestow upon it if it were in Switzerland, for lakes, like waterfalls, are very rare in the Caucasus. Soon after leaving Dushet we climb a rather steep hill--the wilder part of the road is about to begin. On our left is a huge, antique-looking edifice with towers and battlements, which we feel sure has a romantic history, but we are disappointed to learn that the place is only a modern imitation. At a pretty spot on the river-bank near here I met on my return a party of about fifty prisoners on their way to Siberia; they were, as a rule, honest enough looking fellows, and I could not help feeling pity for them when I remembered how many cases I knew of in which innocent men had been ruined in mind and body, by exile for crimes with which they had no connection. The road crosses a range of green hills, and passing through scenery very like that of Kakheti, descends to the Aragva again at Ananur, the most picturesque village on the whole road, although the surrounding landscape is tame compared with that to the northward.

Ananur lies in a pretty little valley, amid well-wooded hills. At the southern end of the village, perched on a rising ground, is a partly ruined wall with towers and battlements, within which are two churches, one of them still used for divine service, the other a mouldering heap of moss-grown stones. The post-house is at the farther end of the village, and while the horses are being changed we have time to return to the ruins, about a quarter of an hour's walk; by the roadside are several little shops in which furs of all the wild animals of the country may be bought for a trifle; there is also a small barrack. We now climb up to the citadel, and as we enter we cannot help thinking of some of the scenes of blood which have taken place here, even as late as a century and a half ago, when Giorgi, the Eristav (or headman) of Aragva, defended the castle against the Eristav of Ksan. When the place had been taken and all the garrison slain, Giorgi and his family fled to the old church, thinking that no Christian would violate the right of sanctuary, but the conqueror heaped up brushwood round the building and burnt it down; only one of the ill-fated family escaped alive.

The door by which we are admitted lies on the side farthest removed from the road; it leads us through a square tower into the citadel proper, which occupied a piece of ground about one hundred paces long and forty paces broad; formerly it used to stretch down to the very bank of the river, where a ruined tower may still be seen. On entering we see immediately on the left the ruined house of the Eristav Giorgi; straight in front of us is a well-preserved tower, on the left of which may be seen the ruins of the old church, on the right is the modern church. The old church is, of course, quite ruined; it is only about five-and-twenty paces in length by fifteen paces broad. There still exist fragments of painting and carving which would doubtless prove highly interesting to those who are acquainted with the history of Byzantine art. The building is said to date from the fourth century. There is also a small underground chapel which is fairly well preserved.

The larger church was built by the Eristav Giorgi in 1704; it is thirty paces long by twenty paces broad, and is an enlarged copy of the older sanctuary; the stone of which it is built is yellowish. It is a very fine specimen of Georgian architecture. Beautifully carved in the stone, on each side of the building, is a gigantic cross of vine branches (the cross of St. Nina). The decorative work is excellent throughout, both in design and workmanship; but the figures of animals, &c., are very poor indeed.

Ananur is connected with the darkest page in the mournful latter-day history of Georgia. The Persians had taken Tiflis in 1795, and reduced it to a smouldering heap of ruins. King Irakli, with a few servants, had escaped almost by a miracle, and had taken refuge in the mountain fastness of Ananur; abandoned by his cowardly, faithless children, betrayed by his most trusted dependents and allies, sick in body and weary in mind, the old man of seventy-seven was a sight sad enough to make angels weep. "In the old, half ruined monastery of Ananur, in an ancient cell which used to stand in the corner of the monks' orchard, one might have seen a man dressed in a rough sheepskin cloak, sitting with his face turned to the wall. That man, once the thunderbolt of all Transcaucasia, was the king of Georgia, Irakli II. Near him stood an old Armenian servant. 'Who is that sitting in the corner?' asked those who passed by. 'He whom thou seest,' replied the Armenian, with a sigh, 'was once a man of might, and his name was honoured throughout Asia. His people never had a better ruler. He strove for their welfare like a father, and for forty years kept his empire together; but old age has weakened him, and has brought everything to ruin. In order to prevent quarrels after his death, he determined to divide his kingdom among his children while he still lived, but his hopes in them were deceived. He who was chief eunuch of Tamas Khuli Khan when Irakli was a leader of the Persian army, now marched against him in his feeble old age. His own children refused to help him and their native land, for there were many of them, and each thought he would be striving, not for himself, but for his brother's good. The King of Georgia had to ask the help of the King of Imereti, but if thou hadst been in Tiflis thou hadst seen how shamefully the Imeretians behaved. Irakli, with but a handful of men, fought gallantly against a hundred thousand, and lost his throne only because his children pitilessly forsook him, leaving him to be defeated by a wretched gelding. His ancient glory is darkened, his capital in ruins, the weal of his folk is fled. Under yon crumbling wall thou seest the mighty King of Georgia hiding from the gaze of all men, helpless and clothed in a ragged sheepskin! His courtiers, all those who have eaten his bread and been pressed to his bosom, have left him; not one of them has followed his master, excepting only me--a poor, despised Armenian.'"

From Ananur the road rises along the Aragva valley, which is well cultivated, thanks to a fine system of artificial irrigation. On our left, about a couple of versts from the station, we see high up on a hill the ruined castle and church of Sheupoval, where a grandson of the Eristav Giorgi shared the fate of the rest of his family; the place was burnt down with all its inhabitants. As we pass along the road we meet several pleasant-looking wayfarers, all armed with long, wide dagger, and many carrying in addition sword and rifle; this highway is, however, perfectly safe as far as brigands are concerned, the carrying of weapons is merely a custom which means little more than the use of a walking-stick in our country. Several handsome Ossets, as they pass, courteously salute us with the phrase, "May your path be smooth!" a peculiarly appropriate wish in such a region. When we go through a little village, pretty children run out to look at us, but they never beg, indeed I never saw or heard of a Georgian beggar, although there is much poverty among the people.

All along the road, wherever there is a coign of vantage one sees it topped by the ruins of a four-sided tapering tower, standing in the corner of a square enclosure; every foot of ground has its history of bloodshed and bravery, a history now long forgotten, save for the dim traditions of the peasantry.