We spent a couple of hours in rest and refreshment, and then started for home across the broad plain yellow with ripe grain. Noon saw us begin the toilsome ascent of the hills of Signakh, and an hour later we were lying on our balcony dreamily smoking cigarettes of Kartuban tobacco, while we mentally retraced every step of our delightful journey among the fair scenes which now lay spread at our feet. SIGNAKH TO TELAV, AND THENCE TO TIFLIS. My stay in Kakheti was so pleasant that I found it very hard to leave. My good friends there insisted that I should marry a Georgian lady and settle down as a country squire, to grow wine and drink it among them for the remainder of my natural life; when I finally decided upon the day for my departure they pressed me to stay, at least, until the vintage-time, but I still had much ground to go over, and I had made up my mind to return to England before winter set in. One morning in July I said good-bye to Signakh, and set out in a post-cart for Telav. As far as Bakurtsikhe the road was quite familiar to me; it had never seemed so beautiful as it did when I said farewell to it. Then came Kalaki, which like Bakurtsikhe, is full of members of the Vachnadze family, and Gurdjani, one of the villages belonging to the Andronikovs. The Andronikovs are descended from a Byzantine prince who fled to Georgia during the reign of Queen Tamara; they have always been distinguished for bravery and munificence, the two virtues which are most appreciated in this country; in the present century they have produced a general worthy to rank with any who have ever served the Tsars. I may say, in passing, that it is astonishing to find what a large percentage of the great military leaders in the Russian army have been and are of Georgian birth. Another curious circumstance is that some of the best families in Georgia are of foreign origin; the Bagrats, the royal family, were once Hebrews, and claim to be descended from David, the son of Jesse; the Orbelianis, the second family in the kingdom, came from China; the Andronikovs, as we have just remarked, were originally Greeks.