The City Fathers gave us greeting in a few short and well-chosen phrases to which Mr. J. R. Macdonald suitably responded. We then proceeded for a similar function to the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party. Five thousand people assembled in the street to be introduced to us. The introductions were made from a balcony. Each delegate was brought forward separately and named, with certain of his gifts and exploits. Then the crowd yelled with delight. M. Vandervelde on our behalf acknowledged the courtesy and struck the international note, and we were released for lunch and a subsequent tour of the city’s chief points of interest.
The tightness about my heart left me after the first hour amongst these happy people. What, I asked myself, had I really been afraid of? I had feared to see a starving company drawn up in stiff lines giving us welcome by compulsion. I remembered how, in Petrograd, loss of work or of ration was the punishment for non-attendance at these formal ceremonies. The cruel fatigue of many hours of waiting in biting wind or blistering sun was the price paid there by thousands of underfed and underclad workmen and women for a sight of the foreign delegates. I felt it quite impossible to endure this sort of thing again.
But in Georgia it was different. The experience in Batoum was the same everywhere. There was no compulsion to meet us. The people came because they wanted to come. They moved freely amongst us, without restraint of speech or manner, laughing, shouting, singing. The brown-eyed children climbed into our laps. They shyly played with our watches or examined our clothes. In all those merry faces turned up at us on the balcony I saw not one look of bitterness, no tightening of thin lips, no burning hate in the eyes. One jolly giant, whose curly grey-black hair waved a head’s breadth above the crowd, led the cheering, which was caught up by the crowd in unmistakable sincerity. They ran by the side of our carriages, flinging red roses into them and blowing kisses to us as we gathered up the roses and pinned them to our coats as the red emblem of international solidarity.
We spent a pleasant afternoon in the Botanical Gardens, rich with every kind of tropical and semi-tropical fruit. The head gardener boasted with joyous pride the possession of sixty different varieties of orange. There they hung, yellow and tempting. Visions of Southern California surged up, the blue Pacific at San Diego, and the big glowing orange broken off the tree, ripe and delicious, for the daily breakfast. From the figs and grapes, the lemons and bananas of these gardens, we proceeded to the tea plantations and the bamboo woods, and saw two infant industries developing themselves, the one under the care of a skilled Japanese. Georgia’s industry needs development on modern lines, with modern machinery and by modern methods. At present production is slow and old fashioned. A common sight on a Georgian landscape is a wooden plough, hand guided, drawn by eight pair of stout oxen. This is mediæval.
In the evening we were entertained by the Batoum Municipality to a dinner on the enclosed veranda of a large public ballroom. A Georgian dinner is a thing to be remembered, and this, the first of many, lingers pleasantly in the mind. Flowers and climbing plants adorned the glass-covered veranda on the outside, palms and flowering trees decorated and scented it within. The long table accommodated two hundred guests. At one end of the room a choir sang songs, and an orchestra made merry music whilst we ate. Course followed course of the most deliciously cooked food. Enormous epergnes, filled with glowing peaches of incredible size and huge black grapes, adorned the table at frequent intervals of space. There were sparkling wines of rich vintage and various colours, exquisite in the soft light from the shaded lamps. This dinner could not have been surpassed for the completeness of its appointments by the most expensive mountain hotel in America. Torrents of summer rain and vivid flashes of lightning added to the sense of comfort and jollity within.
The speeches at a Georgian banquet are delivered between the courses. After the speeches, before the speeches, furtively during the speeches, the toasts are called. Never in the world was there anything like this mad passion for toasting one another. Every guest is toasted at least once. The health of every lady is drunk at least ten times! If the wine does not give out, absent friends and popular causes, the cook in the kitchen and the butler in the pantry supply excellent excuses for a further riot of toasting. Conversation waxes louder and more excited with every glass. Eyes begin to shine with the moving spirit of alcohol. Strange stories of gallant adventure are told aloud. Wild gestures are flung about. Out of the storm of confused tongues and frantic gesticulations, from the far end of the table comes a faint voice softly singing a slow song. Others take up the strain. In less than two minutes the entire table is singing, each person roaring his accompaniment at the very pitch of his voice. This song sounds like a Scottish psalm tune, but it is the Georgian equivalent to “He’s a jolly good fellow.” It is very impressive and runs something like this; I give it from ear:
Georgian “Toast” Song
Very slowly.
Perhaps twenty times in one evening this song is started and taken up by the company. Each time it is a compliment directed at some special guest, and concludes with the clinking of glasses and a roar of cheers for the honoured one, who bows his appreciation of the kindly courtesy.