crowned hills. There are forests of locust trees white with blossoms, whose perfume fills the air. The locust seems to be popular and is not only planted around every station on the railway but around all the dwelling houses, farm houses and the cottages in the villages along the way. The farm houses look like timber claims in our Western states, and all the trees are locusts. There are a good many orchards and the quince and apple trees were in bloom when we made our journey. They seem to be well trimmed and cared for. The rocks along the canons are decorated with rhododendrons and yellow honeysuckles, which are in blossom in April, and you can fancy how beautiful a railway right of way can be where the walls are covered with such foliage on both sides. But the scenery is not so wild as I expected from the printed descriptions I had read. We crossed the divide through a long tunnel at an elevation of 3,027 feet and dropped down rapidly into a lovely, wide, level valley, every acre of which is covered to-day with a carpet of living green. The city of Tiflis is 1,355 feet above the sea, about the same latitude as Rome, and has an annual rainfall of nineteen inches, which is sufficient to raise all kinds of staples of the temperate zone without irrigation. Notwithstanding the restless and turbulent disposition of the Georgian and other races who make up the population, the farming element seem to be industrious and prosperous, and although their houses and the manner in which they live, their tools and implements would not be tolerated by an American farmer, their standards of comfort and luxury are not high; they would be, no doubt, contented if they had political liberty and were not so constantly reminded that they are the subjects no longer of a Georgian king, but of a Russian czar. If the government would do something for them to promote their material interests they might be more contented, but the Russian oflScial regards the Georgians as an undisciplined and rebellious race, and as long as such relations continue there cannot be much improvement.
Long trains of tank cars stood on the sidetracks at almost every station, either loaded with oil for Batoum or empties on their way back to Baku to be refilled. One of the most important oil companies built its own pipe lines following the railway across the entire Caucasus from Baku to Batoum, but the weaker and less wealthy operators use the railway. There is an odour of petroleum almost the entire distance, chiefly because the locomotives burn that kind of fuel, but also owing to the continual leakage of the tank cars along the track. The track between the rails is black with oil almost the entire distance between the Caspian and the Black Seas, which keeps down the dust, although it is an accidental and not an intentional device.
The passenger cars are large, the seats are wide, low, and comfortable, and in the first-class coaches are arranged so that they can be made up into beds at night like those in the ordinary European sleeping car, although every passenger who desires to utilize them in that way must bring his own sheets, blankets and pillow. The cars are divided into compartments, and the only objection is that there is but one small, high window in each compartment, so that it is impossible to see the country you are passing through unless you stand up or go out into the corridor, which is lighted in a similar way. The first-class passengers except ourselves were military oflScers and their families, and they all wore their uniforms and swords, high-topped boots and heavy overcoats, notwithstanding the hot weather.
The first third of the distance from Batoum to Tiflis is a level plain, called a steppe in Russia, which is thoroughly cultivated, but the farm homes are wretched wooden hovels. We saw the women working in the fields — which they have to do to keep the pot boiling, for the men are in the army, drawing no wages and producing nothing.