Wednesday, May 13, 1840

1840

May

Wednesday 13

6 10/..

12 3/4

Very fine morning; Réaumur 12 1/2 at 6 1/2 – Breakfast at 7 35/.. – to 8 1/4 with pother of letters again, etc.  Had to write in Russian the name of each English person on each letter – Not off till 9 35/.. –

9 35/.. to 12 50/.. Tiflis to Kodi                  (25)

1 40/.. to 4 5/.. Kodi to Mutchanesh           (27)

4 3/4 to 6 27/.. Mutchanesh to Saiatchesi   (22)

7 to 9 10/.. Saiatchesi to Astaphrinskii       (21)

                                                                     95

Never tire of the picturesqueness of Tiflis, though there is not a tree to be seen except at and in the gardens about the town, all nearly in full leaf – Stop at the Cossack barrack just out of the town, and take an Escort of 4 well appointed soldiers like Cossacks –

Low sandrocky banks of rapid Kour, classic, interesting river – Now at 10 1/2, drag down little steep pitch and a few old remains of towers opposite side (left bank of) river and a little brick church – Very fine day – Sun and pleasant air –

At 12 stopped a moment for our drivers to take a draught at a wine shop by the wayside, at 6 versts from the Station – Snow mountains in sight 2 hours from Tiflis – 3 or 4 villages – Kodi (the river district – a little lake near) – A large village of Sacles looking like tertres (hillocks) of sand crowned with a little coarse dirty (hamper like) round basket (Chimney) – 4 round towers – Fine valley, perfectly treeless – Chiefly pasture – The low shrubs a sort of Elm or hazel? with small leaves –

The Station a neat, good, large, whitewashed one-story government house – The villages with generally at least one ruined square or round tower, are only distinguishable even at a short distance by the little enclosures and orchards – It is only a few gentlemen's houses that are one story of brick or stone (or sun-baked mud – bricks made with chopped straw) and have an open room above with pillars (wood posts) all round supporting an ealing roof – It is these Lord Royston speaks of –

From here (Kodi) mountains little distance left rising in 3 sharp uneven crested étages the uppermost part covered with snow – At 2 1/2 cross the Alghi stream 10 versts from Kodi and 17 from Mutchanesh, and road right (35 versts from Tiflis) to Erivan –

At 2 3/4 large village – Trees and numerous little irrigation streams – several villages from here – Good corn, – Much cattle – Horses and a few good but not large mules –

Muchanesh – the man wanted an abasse more till he saw my marche-route signed by the head of the post office – Good little stationhouse on high indurated sand-bank over the fine fertile lower valley of the picturesque (good) river Chram – The back of the stationhouse about 100 yards from the steep precipice over the vale of the Chram deep below the valley along which we had come, and very picturesque – All rich green pasture, and scattered villages or groups of trees and orchards enclosing villages, of course – Beautiful green lizard – Sand martins in the sand rock of the precipice, and a black swallow-like bird among them and a beautiful bird with light blue belly and orange back and orange wings bordered with black, – Called, according to George’s pronunciation (he inquired), pitchōōres – Pheasants eye (pæonia) a common weed all along today –

At 5 25/.. descend steepish little pitch down upon the Chram and cross it over picturesque good, old, 4 pointed arch, whitewashed, brick bridge built, said George, by a demoiselle of this country (the famous queen Thamar, did he mean?) and here, said he, the boundary of the pays (Kingdom of Georgia) – 4 pointed arches over the water and one small pointed dry arch on the left bank –

River 30 or 40 yards wide at the bridge? and rapid – Remain on each bank of part of one arch of another bridge a little beyond the present bridge – The green fertile mulberry-wooded valley of the Chram very picturesque – A round wattled enclosure (mud sacle –house of the guardian of the bridge?) at near the end of the bridge left bank of river – 12 versts from here to the next Station –

At 6, wood on the hills from top downwards right, and wood along the Chram left bank– River about 200 yards from us left –

Siatchesi at 6 27/.., good little whitewashed, mud plastered Stationhouse as before – The Chram very picturesque and streamy – A line of mist in the distance (left) front of the house – Along the foot of high mountains beyond the wood along the Chram, is it the Kour? The Chram winding below the house about 100 yards off and little Tatar village on its bank very picturesque –

Went into 2 of the sacles (souterrain huts – sunk about 4 feet in the ground, rest upon the natural surface of the ground) – 5 women – their chemises open so as to shew their flabby, pendent breasts and great part of the stomach – Curiously examined our clothes – admired Ann’s green silk wadded bonnet lined with pink – Much cattle, small and generally reddish or dun and great many sheep of the fat-tailed kind, mostly black or light brown, and some quite black goats – Beautiful day and beautiful sunset now at 6 55/.. –

Off from this picturesque station at 7 – At 7 1/2 stopt to fix our Charcoal bag on the step on Ann’s side (off side) – The jolting on the caravan behind so great, the sack had been caught by the wheel and torn, and the Charcoal was strewing round – Righting this took us 20 minutes, that we did not reach Astaphrinskii for the night till 9 10/.. –

The murmur of the river – The resting caravan of 30 or 40 camels carrying hospital medical stores for government to Baku, the dim light the charming evening, – a delightful, tranquil scene – I stood some minutes with the camels, a few browzing – some chewing their cud, some sleeping their faces flat on the ground doglike, and their hind legs curiously bent under them in the oriental sitting fashion –

Tea at 10 40/..  Went out again for all etc. etc. till 12 1/4, at which hour, Réaumur 16 3/4 in our room – Lay down at 12 3/4

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/24/0102 and SH:7/ML/E/24/0103