From Agrikar to Karakach is the section of this barrier along which this process of condensation is most pronounced; the mountains are known by the natives under the collective name of Mokri Gori, the wet mountains. The principal stream, besides the Kur, is that which issues from Lake Toporovan, and, descending south, flows through Lake Tuman. After emerging on the southern shore, it receives an affluent from Lake Madatapa, and pursues a northerly course. Where we arrived upon its margin, half an hour south of Akhalkalaki, it was a nice flash of water, flowing slowly over the surface of the plateau. Below the town it is joined on the left bank by a stream which has descended from the northern slopes of the Chaldir Hills; and further west, on the right bank, by the river of Samsar, which brings the drainage of the north-easterly arm of the plain and flows in a deeply eroded bed. [43] At Akhalkalaki the Toporovan is bordered by lofty cliffs, a cañon or trough which has the appearance of a sinuous crack in the surface of the plain. Gaining the summit of either cliff, you stand on level ground, with a flat or undulating country sweeping around you to the distant limits of the mountain chains. You breathe a keener air when you emerge from the narrow valley; the town is placed at a little distance from the edge of the cliff which rises along the left bank. But how present my reader with a picture of a settlement which is nothing more than an agglomeration of one-storeyed, flat-roofed houses, placed, as it were at random, on the floor of the plain? It seemed ridiculous to focus the camera at such an insignificant object--the flat roofs, with their covering of withered turf, repeating and lifting the texture and colour of the ground. Moreover Akhalkalaki is a fortress; the camera is interdicted--a happy thought in this particular case. Fortress-spying would be a poor amusement in this country; like the fleet of Spain, they are so extremely difficult to detect. The old castle above the river has been restored and converted into a barrack; a similar purpose is served by some stone buildings in the environs of the town. I do not know that the god of war is otherwise represented; but greater honour has been paid to the demigods of justice, and the Governor remarked to me--what was indeed sufficiently evident--that the prison on the outskirts was the only two-storeyed edifice in the place. Just a house or two, including that of the Governor, had been provided with a roofing of metal sheets, painted a pleasant red. But all the tenements appeared well built, of solid stone masonry; and the street or two which the place contains were certainly spacious, although ill-maintained and deep in dust. When we arrived, we were greeted by a chorus of the pariah dogs, as though we were entering a purely Eastern town. Still there are a few modern shops, notably a large drapery establishment, where the necessaries of civilised life may be procured.