Many monks are buried there and the whole is surrounded by a high wall with towers.
The beautiful Queen Thamar, a celebrated Queen of Georgia, whose palace was within the precincts, could not have felt very happy there, one would imagine. But who can tell!
We lunched at a most filthy inn, and subsequently visited a convent, the tiny church of which contains the remains of the first King of Georgia and of his wife; it was built by St Nina who is so greatly venerated in the Caucasus. The tower of the church is very ancient and possesses many architectural qualities. We were shown the nuns’ dormitory; their beds consist of planks of wood merely covered with a carpet, each has a single pillow but no bolster. I did pity those poor things!
CHAPTER IX
TIFLIS is a town of 100,000 inhabitants, built, as it were, at the bottom of a basin, surrounded by high mountains which in former days were wooded, now, however, absolutely bare owing to a terrible conflagration some years ago.
The view of the snow-capped Mount Kasbeck is one of the most beautiful to be obtained in that superb range.
The streets of the town were paved with rough cobbles placed in upright position making it almost impossible for pedestrians, so much so that for their convenience little smooth crossings are made at intervals. The horses of the country are as sure-footed as mules, and they go at full tilt down the streets which to my unaccustomed mind seemed more like precipices than anything else. But I never once saw any of these animals stumble.
I could not help remarking the strange get-up of the police at night; “night watchmen” as they are called, posted at various street corners armed with huge clubs. I took them to be robbers before their calling was explained to me.
Apart from the European quarter of Tiflis there is also the Mussulman quarter, which is most interesting and its aspect most picturesque with its curious looking cosmopolitan populace.
It is wiser for a woman not to venture alone into this quarter, in spite of the amiable smiles and brilliant and inviting eyes of the Turks and Persians, who try to attract you into their pretty little shops so full of cachet. Many make carpets, some of which are very beautiful. The Persian bakers’ shops are full of originality with their different loaves, not resembling ours in the least, and their large and flat pastry cakes which they hang on cords in their shop fronts, even several layers of these cakes one on the top of another where the glass front of the shops would be with us; glass does not exist with them.