The road is still divided into posts or stages, and we travelled from stage to stage with fresh post-horses. It was tiring work riding these rough and badly broken brutes, and Dr. Woods, who was an indifferent horseman, suffered very severely; but the excitement of the journey and the wildness of the scenery kept us up. Our first day's journey was very picturesque, for the road wound along the side of a deep ravine for many miles, and then curled along the flanks of the hills that rose above us beautifully clad with hazel trees. We passed through a part of the district of Lazistan, and were much struck by the magnificent type of men that we saw there, tall, straight, muscular fellows, lithe and hardy as the mountain ash. Perhaps it is true that this country is the real cradle of the human race, and that from there the tide of migration flowed westward over Europe, sending one tributary stream down into Greece, and another down into Italy, and passing onwards in ever increasing volume, until it spread population, not only through Western Europe, but away, as industrious archæologists have whispered, conning their strange finds among the Incas of Peru and Mexico, to the great Western continent that lay beyond the fabled inland of Atlantis. At any rate those who hold to this theory might find support for it in the magnificent physique of the present population of this primeval country. At times, when a sick man is sent back to breathe the air of his native place after a lifetime spent in some distant city, he gathers new health and strength in some mysterious way. So tired humanity, sick and undersized in Western Europe, regains its pristine vigour and development among the mountains and ravines where it first saw the light. Not only were these men of Lazistan very fine fellows themselves, but we saw that they possessed some magnificent dogs, powerfully built, shaggy coated animals, with enormous muscular strength. These dogs were greatly prized by their owners; and though I tried hard to secure one by purchase, I failed. They are used to guard the flocks of their masters, and many a fierce duel has been fought at night between a grey old wolf, impelled by hunger to attack the sheep, and the grim custodian of the flock. In the winter all the mountains in Lazistan are covered with snow for months, and the white covering of those lonely grassy slopes is often stained by the traces of these battles _à outrance_. After completing our first day's journey, we came in the evening to a small village, where we put up at a filthy little khan, and made ourselves as comfortable as we could. We had brought plenty of food with us, and our principal discomfort was as usual occasioned by the fleas, which were as pertinacious as those which Thackeray has depicted as pulling the Kickleburys out of bed during their famous excursion up the Rhine.