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

by H. F. B. Lynch

Fig. 7. Plain of the Rion from the Southern Slopes of Caucasus; Kutais in the Foreground.

Let us realise for a moment the meaning of the landscape, and allow the mind to assist the eye. The opposite mountains belong to the girdle of ranges which buttress the Armenian tableland, the same which we have followed along the coast of the Black Sea, and which we left at our entrance upon the plain of the Rion stretching eastwards away from the shore. Here they constitute the barrier which separates the lowlands of Imeritia from the highlands about Akhaltsykh in the south; and, if you wish to examine the structure of this barrier more closely, you will find that the back or spine of the system consists of a ridge which extends in an easterly direction to about the longitude of Tiflis. The Caucasus, with an axis inclining south-eastwards, steps up to this latitudinal chain, and just east of Kutais the two systems join hands in the belt of picturesque hill scenery which divides the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion, and which we already know under the name of the Meschic linking range. East of Tiflis the axis of the Armenian border ranges is turned towards south-east, and follows a direction parallel with that of Caucasus along the trough of the Kur towards the Caspian Sea. Like the Caucasus here in the north, its opposite neighbour, that southern bulwark extends from sea to sea; and some geographers have applied to it the name of Little Caucasus, a misleading and, if we attach importance to the phenomena of Nature, a most inappropriate name. For while the northern range may be described as an isolated and independent structure—independent in appearance at least—which rises on the one side from about the same levels as those to which on the other side it declines, that on the south is in reality nothing more than a succession of steps or buttresses which lead up to and flank the Armenian highlands. The first stages of our journey will conduct us up the slopes of those mountains, from a plain which does not much exceed the sea-level, across a ridge of which the pass has an altitude of about 7000 feet, to plains which range between a height of 7000 and not less than 3000 feet above the sea.

August 25.—From Kutais to where the southern range perceptibly commences to gather, about the village of Bagdad, is a direct distance of close on fifteen miles. So even is the plain that the road makes little deviation and covers the space in seventeen miles. At half-past eight on the morning of the 25th of August our victoria, drawn by four horses abreast, made its start from the little hotel in which we had lodged; it was followed by the cart which we had engaged for the luggage and to which was harnessed a similar team. We had hired both conveyances for the whole of the journey to Abastuman on the further slopes of the southern range; the regular avenue of communication with that summer watering-place is by the valley of the Kur and Borjom, and it is necessary to make your own arrangements if you desire to take the Imeritian road. We spent five hours upon the first stage of only seventeen miles; our coachman was obliged to harbour the strength of his horses for the long ascent to the summit of the chain, and we were always halting to take photographs and to realise the interest of the magnificent scenery which forms the distant setting of these lowlands. We were crossing the uppermost portion of the plain of the Rion, where it rises to the belt of hill and mountain which links the northern with the southern range; long stretches of woodland with an undergrowth of wild rhododendron had taken the place of the expanse of golden maize-fields, broken by little trees and intervals of bush. To emerge from the shady avenue upon a tract of open country was to feast our eyes upon a landscape of no ordinary character. On the one hand the airy pinnacles and gleaming snowfields of Caucasus, on the other the forest-clad walls of the Armenian border chain; in the west the varied detail that covers the floor of the plain as with a carpet, and behind us the spurs meeting in the east.

We were impressed by the hush of life over the plain and in the woodlands, by the sparseness of human habitations, and by the absence of traffic along the road. Such are the certain signs in the East of economical stagnation, when man is idle and the earth sleeps. It was therefore with pleasure that about one o’clock we came upon a tiny village and lingered beneath a spreading tree. Not very far from this little settlement we crossed a stream at the base of the mountains, and at half-past one we came to a halt in the street of the village of Bagdad, after a short but perceptible rise. We noticed some vineyards during the course of our upward progress; the elevation of Bagdad, according to the single reading of my barometer, is 922 feet.[3]

It is at Bagdad that you begin the ascent of the mountains of the southern border. So broad is the range, the pass so lofty and the road so tortuous, that it would be no easy matter to cross them in a single day. The direct distance measured on a map from the village to the pass is no less than seventeen miles, and along the road you cover some thirty-one miles. There is a hut at about half-way which is a convenient night’s quarter, and we resolved to make it the goal of our second stage.

We left Bagdad at three o’clock, with the valleys still open about us, with the wooded slopes rising on every side. After we had passed to the right branch of the stream which we had crossed below the village, the gradients commenced to make themselves felt, and here and there among the foliage the first fir trees started, the delicate blue firs. We followed the course of the running water up the spacious valley, through the forest which clothes the range from foot to summit and stands up along the ridges against the sky.

The saturated atmosphere and warm climate of the seaboard were still with us; the one feeds, the other stimulates this luxuriant growth. Even on this fine day the clouds still lingered in the uppermost hollows, and when at four o’clock we opened up a beautiful side valley, all the landscape of wooded fork and winding torrent reflected the silvery hues of a crown of captive vapour clinging to the recesses at the head of the glen.

Verst after verst we might count our progress on the white milestones, but we rarely observed a sign of the presence of man. A Georgian wayfarer, staff in hand, a peasant’s cottage with its wide verandah, were the infrequent incidents in a scene which still belonged to Nature, and with which such figures and such objects harmonised. At last at the side of the road where the forest was thickest we came upon a solitary little cabin, a neat wooden structure, which we at once recognised as our shelter for the night. It was a quarter-past seven o’clock and we had reached an altitude of 1900 feet.[4] During the space of some fourteen miles from our mid-day station, the valley to which we had throughout been faithful had narrowed to a deep trough; and an hour before our arrival at the hut of Zikari the read was taken for a short space along the left bank of the stream, in order to avoid a projecting buttress of its eastern wall.

Fig. 8. Road in the Forest.