Ivan presently brought to my room an employee of the hotel, whom he introduced as a friend of his of twelve years’ standing. “Good,” I replied, thinking the man might prove a source of information. “Get him to tell us what is going on here.” After a moment’s hesitation the man answered: “Ivan, I have known you long and would tell you everything if I dared, but whoever speaks in Kutais, even to a friend, is put in prison and his house burned. I dare not tell you anything.” “That is nonsense,” I replied. “There is no one in this room but ourselves. He can speak with utter frankness,” but the man only shook his head and replied: “Even the walls of Kutais have ears.” Ivan himself yielded to the suspicious atmosphere and added, as if to quiet me, “That is true, sir! One dare not speak in his own room.” No amount of persuasion, not even the persuasion of money, which the man doubtless needed, would induce him to say more. After breakfast I ventured out for a survey of the town--much to Ivan’s disgust. Ivan was a brave fellow in the mountains, but he had seen the Cossacks of this same General Alikhanoff, who now commanded Kutais, hack off the fingers of fine ladies for the rings they wore, in Tiflis only a few months before. During the first hour we were out I must have seen [Illustration: A Georgian village It was from hamlets like this that General Alikhanoff tried to collect taxes with machine-guns and field-artillery] twenty political arrests. Demolished houses were in every block. Occasionally an entire block had been swept away by fire. That afternoon when I talked with General Alikhanoff he explained to me that when “his soldiers were ordered to burn down a certain house they do not always have time to see that other houses do not burn also!” Toward noon we came upon a group of Cossack barracks, and I proposed to Ivan that we run through them. “Not for a thousand rubles,” replied the redoubtable Ivan. But I finally persuaded him. No soldier above the rank of what we would call corporal was anywhere in evidence. Near a thousand lawless, undisciplined, unrestrained men lounged about the barn-like halls, singing boisterous songs, smoking, and relating stories. Months of service had hardened them and apparently developed traits that lie dormant when they are at home in their own villages. At all events these fellows seemed much more brutalized than any I saw on my expedition from Vladikavkaz. In one room I found a pile of new blankets more than ten feet high, blankets of a quality and texture never before supplied to an army. In this same room twelve or fourteen men were amusing themselves with as many brand new American sewing-machines. “Where did you get these?” I asked in amazement. “We bought them,” replied a hulking fellow of at least six feet three, and pointing to a large shop up the street added: “Go up there and learn about it.”