Our dinner lasted more than two hours, and concluded with some miscellaneous toasts, among which those of England and her Queen were received with the greatest enthusiasm. Then, after tea, the guests amused themselves with music and dancing, and nightfall found us all, young and old, chasing one another about on the hillside in the games of cat-and-mouse and blindman's buff. It was past midnight before we retired to rest; some of us lay on the low, carpet-covered takhti, or divans, which in Georgia replace beds, while those who preferred it slept out on the green, wrapped up in their cloaks. It had been arranged that we should start for the Alazana on the following morning at four o'clock, in order to escape the terrible midday heat of the low-lying plains by the river-side; but when we rose we found that a couple of the horses had disappeared, and this delayed us for two or three hours. At length we started, and, waving farewells to all our good friends at Bakurtsikhe, we proceeded down the long slope to the plain. There were six of us, besides a servant, and we were armed to the teeth, after the manner of the country, with daggers, pistols, swords, and rifles--not an unnecessary precaution, for we saw ploughmen with a double-barrelled gun slung over the shoulder, and sword and dagger at the girdle, while a man stood at the end of the furrow ready to give the alarm. These fertile lands are only half tilled. The wild Lesghian marauders come down upon the farms, and steal all that can be carried away, and in the event of a war they would simply burn up the whole country to the very gates of Tiflis. It was a weary journey down to the river-bank, and we did not reach the ferry until noon. The ferryman lives in a hut a good way from the river, and it was only after firing half a dozen shots in the air that we succeeded in attracting his attention. That half-hour of waiting among the reeds, with the sun right overhead, was the warmest half-hour I ever spent. At length the ferry-boat, a long tree-trunk with the inside burnt out of it, came across the stream, and we took our saddles and bridles and laid them in it. The horses had, of course, to swim, and it was a long and difficult task to get them all over. The current is very strong, and it was a subject for congratulation that none of them were carried away by it. Excepting at the ferry, the banks are so steep that it is impossible to land. When all had safely reached the other side we lay down under the shade of the trees, and lunched off cucumbers and coarse bread, washed down by the white Kakhetian wine, of which we carried a full sheepskin.