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. [10]