i was at kutais in the beginning of may, and i walked from that town two hundred miles across the caucasus to vladikavkaz, which i am told is a notable feat. it will certainly remain very notable in my mind, both in respect of the sights i saw and of the adventures i survived. i ascended from the italian loveliness of imeretia, where the wild fruit was already ripening in the forests, to the bleak and barren solitudes of ossetia, where i had to plough my way through ten miles of waist-deep snow. i was attacked by roughs at gurshevi and escaped from them only to lose myself on the mamison pass, where i found the road overswept by a twelve-feet drift of snow. i spent the night with shepherds on the pass in a koutan, a shelter for cows and sheep, half-house, half-cave, made of stones and mud. a shepherd showed me a track over the snow next morning, and after five hours of the most arduous walking i ever did in my life i reached the other side of the caucasus. but i arrived there only to have a new adventure. a heavy snowstorm had come on so that it was difficult to find the 189road, and at lisri i inquired of a hillman lounging in the way. this man arrested me as a spy and asked ten shillings to release me, and since i refused to pay the bribe i was hailed before the ataman to give an account of myself. such account proving unsatisfactory, i was formally arrested, and in fact remained a prisoner for five days. strangely enough i was hospitably entertained during my captivity by chiefs and priests, but the fifth night i spent actually in prison, in a dirty caucasian gaol with two robbers and a madman.
the air of kutais is pungent with the fragrance of honeysuckle and sweet-briar, rhododendron and azalea—it tickles the nose. i set off on a peaceful sunday morning when a sun hotter than we ever know in england, even in july, was flooding the valley of the river rion with a superabundance of light and heat. the road, eighty miles long from kutais to oni, is perhaps the most beautiful in europe, and this morning, its forested mountains bathed in grey-green loveliness and garlanded with flowers, it was a vision of paradise. as a georgian priest had said to me, “when you get there you will see; it is summer, everything is perfectly beautiful. it is heaven. if one were sent there after death one would not be disappointed.”
i took it very easily this first beautiful day, and between dawn and sunset walked not more than twenty miles. the swallow-tail butterflies and large silver-washed fritillaries sipping honey from bush to bush probably 190strayed further than i did. i envied not at all the dozen people crammed into the oni stage-coach—a vehicle constructed apparently out of currant boxes. in fact, the shorter distance traversed in a day the richer has been that day, one may say. the travellers on the stage-coach certainly didn’t make a supper off wild strawberries as i did. that was the reward of my first day’s sauntering. i found them that day. i did not find any more. the land became cooler and cooler, the next day and the next, till it was obvious i was travelling out of summer into winter again. but these strawberries were rich; they were nearly as large as thimbles, and i gathered about two pounds of them.
i slept that night under a rock a hundred feet above the road, and suffered no disturbance either from robbers or from bears. a soft rain plumped down just after sunset but i was in shelter. i slept, and indeed i could not say what happened that night beyond that the goddesses of sleep were gentle and kind to me. just before dawn next morning i was awakened to hear the cuckoo calling from the dark forest opposite. something in myself craved hot tea. i jumped up and took the road.
i swiftly walked the eight versts to mekhven, where an innkeeper was taking down his shutters, and i persuaded the man to put up his samovar and give me tea. tea is a luxury in these parts, for wine is the cheaper drink. it was no ordinary affair that a stranger should 191walk in at dawn and demand tea, and the innkeeper must have told at least ten villagers of the fact before he put a stick to the kettle. in five minutes his parlour was full of the curious. that i was english seemed to make a profound impression, but one man asked me whether our country was in the direction of tiflis, and another whether it was nearer persia or japan. one thought queen victoria was on the throne; another asked if russian was spoken in london, and were there many georgians there. i had my tea, four glasses, and then drank the company’s health in a tumbler of red wine. they replied, wishing me health on the road, and an affecting reception when at last i reached my hearth and home; might the english prosper and their king live long over them!—no doubt to the gratification of the shopkeeper, who filled a large pitcher from a half-deflated calf’s skin under his counter. the population were of the sort “never deep in anything but wine.”
the succeeding day was also one of full abundant sunshine. my roadside companions were large yellow rock roses and wild geraniums. in the woods i observed wild walnut trees and raspberry bushes. what feasts were promised for the later summer! i went forwards towards alpani, meeting many svani upon the road, a rather wilder tribe than usual, and very ignorant of the russian language. with many of these i shook hands, however, that seeming to be the custom on the road. five miles beyond mekhven three russian tramp 192labourers, of the type gorky represented, wanted me to accompany them, but i declined. it was not easy to keep clear of them, however, and we kept meeting one another throughout the day. this was a day of thirst, as indeed might be said of many succeeding days. white wine and lemonade, red wine with radishes and bread and salt—no shop seemed to purvey more solid fare, and the only alternative to wine was water. but there is water on the road better than in the shops. i may safely say that if i have sampled all their wines i have also tried all their waters and tasted all the rock salts. there must be at least a score of varieties of water along the road, from streams like dilute quinine and iron to foaming seltzer water. in several villages the people fill a bucket with seltzer water every morning. its taste is best just as it comes out of the rock. near alagir the river ardon is white with sulphur, for there is an immense gushing sulphur spring there, and a natural manufacture of sulphurous and sulphuric acid. i suppose before ten years have passed someone will have found it advantageous to work this spring. the appalling smell of sulphuretted hydrogen should be sufficient advertisement. indeed, the richness of the land from an industrial point of view, and its lack of development, is a fact which is bound to strike a modern european with wonder. handsome copper and silver ore and delicious-looking asbestite are to be found with scarcely straying from the road.
193at zhouetti i stepped into an inn, and when the people heard i was an englishman they sent across the way to a factory there and brought a german to see me, herr petersen, and we drank white wine and lemonade. he judged i must be hungry since one could get nothing fit to eat in these parts, and so ran back and fetched a box of sardines. so with unleavened bread and hard-boiled eggs i made a rough lunch there. at the factory is prepared barite powder, used in the manufacture of chintz. herr petersen was very kind, but counselled me against the natives.
i slept that night under a wall in a barley field and was very cold, so the next night i chose a better place, in the snug shelter of an overhanging rock, and screened from view by a full blooming hawthorn bush.
on the third day it rained much, and i spent some hours in caves or under trees. the verdure had a different aspect in the wet, and i reflected as i waited that the spring is not advanced by rain, but it gathers strength in the rain to proceed more quickly when the sun comes out. so with the tramp!
