I Had Left Tiflis About 3 In The Afternoon Of The 5th Of September, And Reached This Place In The Evening Of The 9th, Five Days To Travel 274 Wersti (195 Miles).

I call that a respectable Russian post!

The boat did not start for Redutkale, a distance of eighty wersti, until the morning of the 11th. It was bad weather; and the Ribon, otherwise a fine river, cannot be navigated during a strong wind, on account of the projecting trunks of trees and logs. The scenery still continued beautiful and picturesque. The stream flows between woods, maize, and millet fields, and the view extends over hills and mountains to the distant and gigantic Caucasus. Their singular forms, peaks, sunken plateaus, split domes, etc. appear sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, in front, and behind, according to the ever-changing windings of the river. We frequently halted and landed, every one running to the trees. Grapes and figs were abundant, but the former were as sour as vinegar, and the latter hard and small. I found a single one ripe, and that I threw away when I had tasted it. The fig-trees were of a size such as I had never seen, either in India or Sicily. I believe the whole sap is here converted into wood and leaves. In the same way, the great height of the vines may be the cause of the grapes being so small and bad. There must certainly be a great field for improved cultivation here.

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