If the morning was consumed by these unforeseen complications, the afternoon held in store for the harried travellers a further contrast and a rich reward. The monastery of Safar is situated a few miles [13] south-east of Akhaltsykh on the lofty slopes of a volcanic ridge; the drive thither displays the landscape of the town and surrounding country, and the goal is a group of buildings, of which the principal church is a gem of architecture, instinct with the graces that adorn and elevate life. For awhile we followed down the right bank of the river along the road toward Akhalkalaki and the east; then, almost reversing direction, turned up a side track on the right hand, which conducted us, always rising, across the bleak undulations at the back of the modern town. Here and there the soil had been sown and was yellow with stubble, or lay exposed in patches of plough; but cultivation was only partial, and for many a mile not a village could be discerned. Far and near, the surface of the earth was of a hummocky nature, like sands modelled by children's spades. After jolting along this track for some distance, we again struck a metalled road. It winds along the side of the ridge upon which Safar is situated, and overlooks a deep ravine. The slope of the ridge is clothed in places by a scanty growth of bush and dotted by low trees; but the ravine and opposite hillside are bare and stony, and the landscape is bleak and wild in the extreme. The only signs of life and movement proceeded from a village of which the tenements were built into that opposite slope. The peasants in their gay cottons were threshing the season's harvest, and, as we returned, we saw them transporting it in little carts, drawn by eight oxen apiece, from the fields, where it had been left since the end of June in convenient places, up to the village threshing-floors. We were surprised at the evident prosperity of the occupants of this Georgian settlement; what could be more quaint than women with white gloves and parasols who dwelt in such hovels as those? We met several such groups on the road and about the monastery, which was the goal of their afternoon's walk; several families also, who had come from afar, were encamped at Safar, at once a pilgrimage and a pleasant residence during the summer months.