"The great new fortress is far less intended for a defence than for a storehouse and place of muster for a Russian army of operations against the Persian frontier provinces, whose conquest the Emperor Nicholas undoubtedly bequeaths to his successors. The formidable constructions at Sevastopol, Nicolajeff, and Gumri, are to answer the same end against Turkey as that of Erivan against Persia. These frontier forts are the sword of Damocles, which the emperor--not greedy of conquest himself, but far-calculating for the future--suspends over the heads of his Moslem neighbours, to be drawn from its scabbard under more favourable circumstances by a warlike son or grandson." The appearance of the forts in question gives a show of reason to Dr Wagner's prognostications. Gumri--or Alexandropol, as the Russians have re-baptised the contiguous town--is built on a rocky eminence, whose crags serve it in some measure for walls. It contains barracks, case-mates, storehouses, and hospitals, all as strong as they are spacious, and which could be defended as detached citadels, supposing an enemy to have mastered the walls and rocky out-works. It is adapted for an army of sixty thousand men, and is so roomy, that in case of a sudden inroad of the Pasha of Kars--who, if war broke out, could probably bring an army to the river Arpatschai before the Russians could assemble one at Tefflis, and march to the frontier--not only the whole population of Alexandropol, (in 1843 about 6000 souls,) but the entire peasantry of the surrounding country would find shelter within its walls. Its natural and artificial strength is so great, that a small garrison might laugh at the attacks of Turks and Persians.