While she was being conveyed to Russia by General Toulthkoff an attempt to rescue her was made in the Dariel Pass and nearly every one of her escort were killed in the fight.
Among the other tombs is one bearing the following touching inscription:
“I, Miriam, daughter of Davian, and Queen of Georgia, have taken possession of this little tomb. You who look upon it, remember me in charity and pray for me, for the love of Jesus Christ.”
One of the early Christian kings of Georgia, named Ivane, who in 1123 delivered his country out of the hands of the Moslems, is identified as the mysterious Prester John who attracted a great deal of attention during the Crusades and was the subject of much speculation and frequent discussion. He was first brought to the notice of Europe by Pope Eugene III as having been the saviour and defender of Christianity in this part of the world, but from the indefinite information it was impossible to identify the original among several petty sovereigns in the East.
Sir John Mandeville, knight, in his “Narrative of Marvells,” written in 1332, tells us more about this mysterious character than we have from any other source. He says:
“The Emperor Prester John has been christened and a great part of his land also. They believe well in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Emperor Prester John, when he goeth to battle, hath no banner born before him, but he hath born before him three crosses of fine gold, large and great, and thickly set with precious stones. And when he hath no battle, but rideth to take the air, then hath he born before him a cross made of a tree.”
In all their history there seems to have been only one of their sovereigns of whom the Georgians are proud, and that was Queen Tamara, who ruled all the territory between the Black and Caspian Seas, south of the Caucasus Mountains, from 1184 to 1212. That was the golden age of Georgia. Tamara seems to have been a mixture of masculine energy and courage and feminine loveliness and grace, a Cleopatra and a Joan of Arc in the same woman, combining the virtues of Queen Elizabeth and the vices of Catherine II. Her portraits are found in every household, she is credited with founding every monastery and every church of age, and seems to have had a castle in every corner of the country. Her throne may be seen in the Kremlin at Moscow.
Prince Aragva, the present representative of the Georgian dynasty, a great-great-grandson of George XIII, who renounced his authority in favour of the Russian emperor in 1799, lives at Donchet, at the southern entrance to the Dariel Pass, an agricultural town of about 3,500 inhabitants. He has large estates and an abundance of money and the Russian authorities treat him with distinction. He spends most of his time in St. Petersburg and Paris, but cultivates, through his agents, a large and productive estate. He is said to have no ambition but pleasure and realizes a good deal of that.
The railway across the Caucasus from Batoum, the port on the Black Sea, to Baku, on the Caspian, is 558 miles long, although from the map the strip of territory between those two bodies of water does not seem half so wide. The track follows the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains through the ancient state of Georgia on the southern and Asiatic side, and snow-capped peaks are in sight from the car windows nearly every day in the year during half the journey. The highest point reached by the train is 3,027 feet, where it passes through a long tunnel. The railway was built by the Russian government for military purposes about forty years ago, and is still under military control and managed by military methods. All the material and rolling stock came from the government shops at Moscow; the engines burn oil for fuel and the tracks are five feet gauge.
A squad of soldiers accompanies every train and occupies a car immediately back of the locomotive, to guard the mails and the express car, which often contains treasure and always many valuable packages. This guard has been maintained ever since the revolution. The functions of the civil governor-general have been practically suspended for years; the military commander exercises autocratic authority, and martial law is enforced according to his judgment. That is, all crimes which he construes as being political are tried by military courts and punished by the military authorities, who have practically filled the prisons with political offenders. Other crimes against person and property, which, in the judgment of the military authorities, have no political significance, are committed to the jurisdiction of the civil courts.