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On the right, in the distance, are the highlands of the old kingdom of Armenia, to the left is Imeritia, a glory, like Mingrelia and Guria, of the past. If so inclined, the traveller may exchange, at Rion station, the main for a branch line, which will take him to Kutaïs, the chief town of the old kingdom of Imeritia, where he may tarry for a while to great advantage.
In time of rain, or sudden thaw in the snow mountains, the rivers are overflowed, and travellers must then either wait some days or risk their lives. What a tremendous difference between the colonies of Russia and England! Late in the evening, I arrived, wet through and covered with mud, at the station, two wersti from Kutais.
"When I came here from the hills forty years ago," said he, "long before the Russo-Turkish War, there were three houses here three only, two were wine-cellars. Now Zugdida is second only to Kutais. I remember how two more wine-cellars were built, and a small general shop, then a bread shop, then two more wine cellars, two little grocer's shops, some farm-houses.
Between Kutaïs and Tiflis is the Pass of Suram, at an altitude of three thousand and twenty-seven feet, over which are laid the lines of rail by gradients of one in twenty-two feet over a distance of about eight miles; a triumph of engineering skill due, as is the entire railway, to British capital and enterprise.
Mermeroes in that year advanced from Kutais against Telephis, a strong fort in the possession of Rome, expelled the commandant, Martinus, by a stratagem, pressed forward against the combined Roman forces, which fled before him from Ollaria, and finally drove them to the coast and cooped them up in "the Island," a small tract near the mouth of the Phasis between that stream and the Doconus.
The case was tried before the District Court of Kutais, and the counsel for the defence succeeded by their brilliant speeches not only to demolish completely the whole structure of incriminating evidence but also to deal a death-blow to the sinister ritual legend. The case ended in 1879 with the acquittal of all the accused.
The carts which the peasants use are remarkable, the front part rests upon curved pieces of wood, or sledge-bars; the hinder part upon two small thick discs of wood. My stay in Kutais was caused by the want of horses; it was not till 2 o'clock in the afternoon that I could continue my journey.
E.N. Adler was told that in an Armenian monastery near Kutais, ancient records are preserved which conclusively prove that the Jews were paramount in certain districts three or four centuries ago; Jews in many Lands, p. 178. Cf. Wo wären die zehn Stämme Israels zu suchen? Dr. Neubauer in the third of his valuable articles "Where are the ten tribes?"
The discovery in the government of Kutais, in the Caucasus, of the body of a little Gruzinian girl, named Sarra Modebadze, who had disappeared on the eve of Passover, was deemed a sufficient reason by the judicial authorities to enter a charge of murder against ten local Jews, although the ritual character of the murder was not put forward openly in the indictment.
Five minutes later he was telling me who he was. He was a Georgian prince, by name Shakro Ptadze, and was the only son of a rich landowner of Kutais in the Caucasus. He had held a position as clerk at one of the railway stations in his own country, and during that time had lived with a friend. But one fine day the friend disappeared, carrying off all the prince's money and valuables.
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