Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1 of 2) / The Russian Provinces

by H. F. B. Lynch

Mile upon mile the plain of the Rion was unfolded about us, a fertile province which might be made the granary of Georgia, but which would now appear to produce little else but the lowest of the cereals, an endless succession of plantations of Indian corn. The land is ill-reclaimed; little labour has been expended, and the bush starts up among the canes. At the stations we remarked groups of women and young girls clad in loose cotton dresses with cotton kerchiefs on their heads. Geese strutted along the line or paddled in the shallow streams, and we became familiar with the strange appearance of the Imeritian pigs. But still no village! At rare intervals a wooden hut with a large verandah, and here and there among the maize one of the rude wooden stages erected to command a prospect over the fields.

As we advanced, the dim and misty boundary of the Caucasus took shape and colour about the lower slopes. The soft hues of vegetation, the brighter flashes of naked strata were distinguished from the uncertain background of rock and cloud; bold ridges with fantastic outlines stood up on the horizon; but here and there the white vapour was still clinging to their highest parapets and spreading fanwise to the brief circle of clear sky. Above them lay a world of half-lights and banked cloud-masses, the veiled presence of the main chain. Behind us rose the wooded ridges of the southern range, till they vanished in the folds of the murky canopy which they hold so firmly and love so well; but the marshes had disappeared and the lowest spurs which met the plain were almost devoid of trees. On our point of course the two great ranges appeared to mingle together and arrest our even progress towards the east.

For a second time we were overlooking the stream of the Rion to regain the left bank. It was flowing with a rapid current in a direct line from the Caucasus, channelling the beached-up shingle of an extensive bed. In places the waters spread in shallow lakes and deposit a thick sediment of soil. This upper portion of the plain is barren and stony; it is partially covered with a low jungle of bush. It is confined on either side by the meeting flanks of the mountains; and as we made our way due north with the river serpenting beneath us, all prospect on our right hand was shut out by rising ground clothed with a forest of low oak trees.

On the opposite slopes, among the deepening tints of wood and clearing, beneath the growing distinction of light and shade, we could discern the white faces of a few scattered houses and then the gardens among which they stood. Two larger buildings were apparent, crowned with conical cupolas, of which the roofing was coloured a soft green. Such are the outskirts of Kutais; the town is hidden from the plain. Towering above the scene and almost infinitely high, we might feel vaguely but could scarcely see the gigantic framework of Caucasus, except where here and there a dazzling light among the clouds revealed the presence of a snowfield in the sky.

We were tempted to linger in the capital of Imeritia, and I can confidently recommend to the more leisurely traveller a protracted stay in this fascinating place. You will never tire of the beauty of site and grandeur of surroundings, while few street scenes are more picturesque than those which are disclosed during an afternoon ramble in the Jewish quarter of Kutais. It is a convenient centre for excursions into the recesses of Caucasus, and you have only to follow the windings of the valley of the Rion to be introduced to the inmost sanctuaries of the chain. In the ruins of the noble cathedral beyond the outskirts of the town, in the neighbouring and well-preserved monastery of Gelat, with its enchanting prospect from the slopes of Caucasus over the open landscape of the south, both the archæologist and the student of architecture will discover an abundant source of interest; while, if the study of Nature herself be among the objects of your journey, what richer field could be offered to the geologist or the naturalist than these mountains and untouched forests and flowery hills? But we ourselves were hurried away by the exigencies of travel after a short sojourn of two and a half days, and my present purpose must be confined to the elucidation of those natural features which accompanied the early stages of our ascent to Armenia, and which were unfolded to our view in an extensive panorama from the declivities about Kutais.

I shall therefore take my reader to some convenient standpoint in the environs, let us say to the cliffs on the right bank of the Rion and the hill upon which the massive ruins of the cathedral rise on the sky-line above the leafy brakes (Fig. 6, a). I can show you the position from the opposite bank of the river in a picture which was taken over a mile above the town from the road which ascends the valley and which we followed on our way to Gelat (Fig. [6]). The Rion is flowing from you into the middle distance coming from the north; Kutais itself is hidden by a wooded promontory (Fig. 6, d); but you see the group of buildings which compose the Armenian and the Catholic churches, and which crown the extreme northerly projection of the site (Fig. 6, b). Three bridges span the Rion where it sweeps past the town confined between lofty banks, and lead from the busy streets to the peaceful heights which overlook them and command all the landscape of the plain. I cannot imagine a more charming walk than by the hill church of St. George (Fig. 6, c) to the pleasant eminence which I have already described.

Fig. 6. Banks of the Rion above Kutais.

We reach our point, and there before us expands the open landscape of which the second photograph embraces a considerable part (Fig. [7]). We are standing on the southern slopes of Caucasus, with a wide belt of hill and ridge behind us, and, beyond and far above such familiar natural features, the white serrations and air-borne snowfields of the inmost chain. The atmosphere is fresh and crisp even at this season and with this temperature;[2] and banks of white cloud float in the sky. At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain, emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. On the left hand, outside the photograph, a little north of east, you just discern high on the slopes beyond the left bank of the Rion the site of the monastery of Gelat; and the other day we thought we could descry from its lofty terrace, at the base of a distant promontory of Caucasus the shimmer of the sea in the west.