ON THE ROAD TO TIFLIS
I TOOK my leave of Lavrenti at dawn and set out for Pasanaour. A man
with an ox-dray picked me up two miles from the priest’s dwelling, and
carried me ten miles at a pace slower than that of walking. The driver
belonged to a tribe dwelling on the Black Aragva, consisting of about
thirty thousand souls with a quite alien language and distinct customs,
the _Khevsurs_. For one thing, they take their wives for a year on
probation before marrying them. This man spoke no Russian, but a
Georgian boy who was also being carried told me about him and his
people. He pointed out how dirty he was, and showed a scar on his cheek
and another on his wrist from knife wounds. The Khevsurs are a very
quarrelsome tribe, and it is difficult to find a single grown man who
has never been wounded. They live by shepherding and by wattle-making.
Wattle is a very important manufacture in the Caucasus; houses and
fences are made of it, and it is used for the embankments of the rivers.
[Illustration: GEORGIAN WOMEN]
The ox-cart left the road at the confluence of the Black Aragva with the
White, and I was on my feet again. Many people were on the road, and
these were more or less of a wilder type than those I had yet seen. I
observed that when a man and woman make a journey together, the woman
rides astride on horseback and the man walks at her side. The favourite
colour for dresses seems to be a cloudy crimson.
I found the road monotonously beautiful. The hills were wooded to the
top, the landscape was graceful. Here were more _pretty_ things than on
the north side of the Caucasus. One might have been in a park. Nature
did not seem entirely responsible for the scene; a painter might have
planned the grouping and effects; the country was, in a word,
picturesque. The road seemed endlessly long, and I grew a little tired
of it. The sun, however, was bright and hot, and I made a siesta among
some rocks below the shelter of the road. There, in a cleft, beside the
clear, rushing stream, I had a washing hour. It is wonderful how well
one can wash and dry a garment or so in an hour. I dabbled the things in
the water, and rubbed them and spread them in the sun to dry. Meanwhile
a wren kept coming to and fro on tip-toe with thatch for a little house
she was building under the bridge.
At the same time I also made a meal of bread and sausage helped down
with water. Mountain bread is not good, but it has one advantage—it may
be kept any length of time without its quality being obviously impaired.
Along the road are many extremely ancient ruins, and also buildings of
great antiquity still inhabited. Clearly things last well in the
Caucasian climate. The castles and towers are but toys compared with
Norman ruins; they would have vanished utterly in England. The walls are
so thin and so poorly put together. It seems that warfare has been
rather more of a game than with us. There have been no Cromwells there.
The churches, however, are often surrounded by high battlemented walls,
which suggests that though there were no Puritans there were robbers in
plenty.
Near Ananaour a flock of sheep, about a thousand, were driven past. One
solemn shepherd marched in front of his flock, and at the sides young
men scolded and yelled and kept the order with long poles. It was a
grand sight. I came into the village, where there is an old Byzantine
church with a castellated wall, and went into a tavern to get some bread
and cheese and wine. Two men were at the table eating soup from one
wooden basin with only a single wooden spoon between them. It was not
really soup, but such a collection as no Western person could
face—boiled maize, garlic, raw sliced onion, water and soaked bread. The
two men eating were evidently chums, for instead of using the spoon each
for himself, they helped one another, and I was specially amused to
watch the little bald man near me shovelling the mixture into the mouth
of his tall, hairy companion. As they were drinking yellow wine and I
red, the little bald man proposed a health, and we changed glasses.
Whereupon the company, for there were many present, viewed me with the
utmost cordiality, and I shared among them the superfluity of my cold
brown pitcher.
I set off towards Dushet, but feeling tired I spread my travelling-bed
on a grassy bank and fell asleep. When I awoke it was dark and cold, and
the sky was in continuous sheet lightning. A damp breeze blew briskly
upon me and I was anything but comfortable. I lay for hours half-dozing,
but at length came to the conclusion that it was better walking.
Accordingly I continued my walk to Dushet. It was two in the morning,
and even so early the sky promised dawn from three sides. I had no
notion of the compass.
Very leisurely I made that walk. Ten miles is only a short distance at
night, and I did not wish to arrive too early at Dushet. I promised
myself hot tea, and I must not come too early for it.
It was a strange night, starless, dark, full of flower odours. I wished
to drink, but every mountain stream was chalky. I sat on many stones and
scanned the sky, hoping for the dawn. Dogs barked at me, and even made
to attack me, but of human kind I saw none. I passed a beautiful dusky
plum tree laden with blossom—she was a woman.
About half-past four I came into the district town of Dushet, and at
five o’clock behold me sitting in an inn waiting for the samovar. “It
will be ready at once, in an hour,” the innkeeper had said. On the wall
of the inn was a large coloured picture of the Last Judgment, the good
being led by angels to heaven, and the bad being clawed down into hell
by fiends; it was very realistic, and caused me to recall the lines:
“Hear all the pedants’ screeds and strictures
And don’t believe in anything
Which can’t be told in coloured pictures.”
The Georgians keep a good hot material hell in their conception of the
hereafter.
The innkeeper was evidently only just up, and didn’t intend to serve
customers before he had washed himself and put his shop in order.
Accordingly, I watched his proceedings. He had a small wash, and combed
his brown hair and moustache with two inches of comb, swept up the
refuse from the floor, and put the empty bottles away. Large joints of
mutton and beef hung from the roof—the man was also a butcher—and these
he removed to a stall outside the shop. His wife slept in a bed in a
gallery above the counter, and evidently slept too long, for her good
man seemed to hurl imprecations at her from time to time.
At about half-past six the samovar, which had been “drawing” in the yard
outside the shop, was brought in boiling, and I received what I had
promised myself—four glasses of hot tea, the innkeeper’s charge for
which was ten copecks—twopence halfpenny.
I had no intention of walking this day. When I had finished my breakfast
I went half a mile along the road and then sat down by the wayside. A
quarter of an hour later a van carrying hay came along, and the driver
offered to take me to Tiflis for a rouble. I lay down on two bags of
chaff and soon fell fast asleep.
After about two hours I wakened up to find myself in heavenly
circumstances; beautiful hills, a hot sun, a cool breeze and a
comfortable resting-place. The driver also lay on two sacks and slept.
The three horses clattered ahead, evidently well knowing the way.
So all day we rolled easily over the road as in a coach. The land was
rich and beautiful, and the sun glorified every beauty.
At Mtskhet, the ancient capital of Georgia, we stayed for an hour, and I
rested at a shop whose owners had gone to Tiflis for the day. Two little
girls were in charge, and they gave me a dish of fish without knife or
fork, and on protest brought out a carving knife! The elder girl was
only twelve years old.
In the twilight we sped along the banks of the Kuma and arrived at
Tiflis.
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