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He went on: 'It is not so much that the Mingrelians object to mixed marriages in the matter of religion, but the Bollachians, being Christians, do object, and have a horror of polygamy. It was a cruel affair. All four girls, and the Jamreal himself, were passionately attached to each other.
It is now five o'clock. I have no time to deliver myself in a remunerative torrent of descriptive phrases. Let us hurry off to the railway station. There is a crowd of Armenians, Georgians, Mingrelians, Tartars, Kurds, Israelites, Russians, from the shores of the Caspian, some taking their tickets Oh! the Oriental color direct for Baku, some for intermediate stations.
In the beginning of the sixth century, their influence was restored by the introduction of Christianity, which the Mingrelians still profess with becoming zeal, without understanding the doctrines, or observing the precepts, of their religion.
On the 1st of July we arrived near Phasis, followed by a vessel filled with Mingrelians, who seemed all to be fools or drunk. Quitting the vessel, we went up the river in a boat, passing an island in the mouth of the river, where Oetes, the father of Medea the enchantress, is said to have reigned. On this island we spent the night, and were sadly infested by midges.
The gold mines to the south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and Chosroes; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that a vein of precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the hills, although these secret treasures are neglected by the laziness, or concealed by the prudence, of the Mingrelians.
Here may be found the Georgians, who so long championed the Cross against the Crescent, the wild Lesghians from the highlands of Daghestan; the Circassians, famed for the beauty of their women; Suanetians, Ossets, Abkhasians, Mingrelians, not to enumerate dozens of other tribes and races, each speaking its own tongue.
They hollow out the trunk of a tree, and tread the grapes in it; they then pour the juice into earthen vessels, and bury these in the ground. The character of the Mingrelians is said to be altogether bad, and they are generally looked upon as thieves and robbers; murders are said not to be unfrequent. They carry off one another's wives, and are much addicted to drunkenness.
Before us was laid a greasy skin, on which they served us with bread, radishes, some flesh, and other execrable articles with which I was not acquainted. They continually offered me wine in large goblets, to fill me drunk, according to their abominable customs, as they are as foolish and beastly as the Mingrelians.
It is probable that Lake dwellings were also used in Asia and in Africa from prehistoric times. History tells us that the inhabitants of Phasis, the Mingrelians of the present day, lived in reed huts on the water, and that they went from one islet to another in canoes hollowed out of the trunks of oak-trees.
There were Tartars, Cossacks, Circassians, Georgians, Mingrelians, Turkonians, Armenians, etc.; chiefly powerful, handsome people, with fine expressive features particularly the Tartars and Circassians. Their dress partly resembled the Persian; indeed that of the Tartars differed from it only by points to the boots, and a less lofty cap.
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