Such was the monotonous scene through which the Russian road wound during the course of our afternoon’s drive. Beside us raced the river; we faced the current; at short intervals large, loose stones were disposed in the shape of circles in the shallows at no great distance from the shore. We were told that in winter fish are caught within these circles by means of traps placed at opposite sides. In summer the Georgian fisherman trusts to his casting-net, a laborious process which was being pursued by one of the fraternity for the reward of a few small fish. On the opposite bank we were impressed by the proportions of a cliff of lava, of which the face was disposed throughout in spheroidal blocks rising immediately from the water’s edge.
At last the landscape opened, the most extensive of these oases, the fertile valley of Khertvis. It is heralded from afar by a line of orchards and by gardens terraced up the slope. A well-planned and elaborate system of aqueducts and channels dispense water on every side. Then the road rises up a hillside and commands a startling scene. Below you, crowning a crag at the confluence of two rivers, a well-preserved example of a mediæval castle on a large scale lifts its towers against a background of lofty cliffs (Fig. [16]). A village cowers at the foot of the fortress, almost hidden by dense trees. Such is the castle and township of Khertvis, situated at the junction of the river of Akhalkalaki with the Kur. The road follows the right bank of the first of these streams, and the station is some distance from the town. We were obliged to leave the carriage and entrust our effects to the villagers, who carried them down the steep sides of the high cliff. It was six o’clock; we crossed the river of Akhalkalaki by a little footbridge, and pitched our tents on the floor of a shady garden, not far from the margin of the Kur.
Fig. 16. Castle of Khertvis.
A motley group of people collected about us; of what race, of what faith? Mussulmans! We expected and received the answer, although there was little except our knowledge of the checkered history of these valleys to indicate their adhesion to Islam. The owner of the garden bore the name of Bin Ali Bey Vishnadzi, and was of mixed Georgian and Turkish blood; he stands in the centre of my illustration, in Cossack dress, with his cap on one side (Fig. [17]). His cast of countenance is Georgian, and the hair is somewhat fair; yet his uncle, Hasan Bey, has the Turkish type. His mixed ancestry is no exception among the villagers, and they all call themselves Turks. Their number was given to me as 1500, with 200 houses; the Russian census, which classes them as Georgians, bears out these figures as approximately correct.[4] Among them are a handful of Armenian Christians; the old man with a staff, seated in the foreground of my picture, was our guide from the road to our pleasant camping-ground, and belonged to the Armenian race.
Fig. 17. Group of Villagers at Khertvis.
If reliance can be placed on the figure given by Dubois, the population of Khertvis has almost doubled since 1833.[5] However this may be, the township is now in full decline; misery was written in the faces of a great part of the inhabitants, of whom many were preparing to leave Russian soil. As we passed through the streets, between the tumble-down houses, we observed that some of the shops had been permanently closed. Is it their unfitness to flourish under systematic government? Or the policy of the Russian Government to discourage Mussulmans, with their Turkish sympathies, or some special causes which we were unable to ascertain? Our stay was too short to sift fact from fable; and a rigid reticence was observed by the leading people, who were evidently under the influence of fear.[6]
The river of Akhalkalaki, or the Toporovan river, as it is sometimes called, enters the valley from a little north of east. It appeared to us to contain as much water as the Kur, into which it swirled.[7] The united streams for a short space pursue a westerly direction until they settle to a normal course towards the north. The affluent washes the northern side of the castled rock, which protects a tongue of alluvial ground at its southern base. On this land is situated the little township, embowered in leafy groves. The castle dates from a remote period; and even the present structure is ancient, although it belongs to different epochs. The citadel with the little chapel, occupying the summit of the perpendicular rock, is a work of the middle of the fourteenth century, when the Georgian atabegs were the lords of the land; the remaining portion, with its several towers, is more modern.[8] We ourselves were unable to visit the edifice, which we were never tired of admiring from the river-bed. Behind it soar the walls of volcanic material, where the younger have been forced through the older lavas and have produced fantastic contortions of the rocks.[9]
September 1.—From Khertvis we made an excursion up the valley of the Kur to the crypts of Vardzia, situated on the left bank, some nine miles above the confluence with the Toporovan. For the greater part of the journey, which is performed on ponies, you follow the right bank of the river, along a path which in many places becomes a mere track. We had soon left the shady groves behind us, our clever little ponies often obliged to pick their footsteps, where an outcrop of rock or blocks of fallen stone obstructed the margin of level ground. On either bank, beyond this margin, high hills enclose the narrow valley; here and there with naked crags, more generally with stone-strewn slopes, harbouring a scanty growth of parched grass. No oasis, not a sign of a human being, no visible animal life. The landscape streaming with light, and the brawling Kur breaking over the boulders which encumber its bed. But the climate was delicious, and the blue zenith was flaked with luminous cloud.