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Updated: June 11, 2025
I was always reminded of the state of affairs immediately after my arrival; for during the first years of my school life at Kottbus no one was permitted to enter the city without a paper proving identity, which was demanded by constables at the exits of railway stations or in the yards of post-houses.
At the post-houses nothing can be got but tea, so provisions for nineteen days had to be taken with us, as well as sawn wood, rope and tools in case anything should break, and a large pot of cart-grease to keep the wheels cool. My boxes and trunks are wrapped in bast-matting and secured with strong ropes to the driver's box and behind the tarantass.
By stealth he makes his preparations, and by stealth he cons the miles and the post-houses between him and the country to which he means to carry himself and his stolen goods! He is assiduous at his desk; his employers nod approval, praise him for a lad of parts, and hold him up for emulation. In his brain one air continues, 'Over the hills and far away. "The day approaches.
It is remarkable that the post-houses are generally one or two wersti from the villages or towns. A traveller, in consequence of this custom, is exposed to the inconvenience of making a special journey if he has anything to attend to in those places. 9th September. Kutais contains 10,000 inhabitants, and lies in a natural park; all round is the most luxuriant vegetation.
Post-houses were kept by Jews, who fed us in the rooms where their families lived. Milk and eggs they had none to offer us; and their beds were piles of straw on the ground, seldom clean, never untenanted by fleas. Beggars ran beside us on the wretched roads as neglected as themselves.
Above all, it is a boon to the traveller who has a long journey to make through the uninhabited wilderness, with no inns nor post-houses at which he may replenish his spent stock of provisions. Being dry, firm, and light, it can be conveniently carried in haversack, or saddle-bags.
A railway was mooted some time since along this, the only respectable carriage-road in Persia but the project was soon abandoned. The post-houses, however, are a great improvement on any in other parts of the country.
The post-houses are often lone, wretched places, one into which I peeped, a grenier, like that described by Smollett, in which the murdered body is concealed.
The night closed over the road as he caught the wizard bells. The moonlight turned the peaks to fire. The dark firs shook down their burdens of snow. There were cries of wild beasts from the ravines below. The post-houses were red with firelight. The steed floundered through the snow-drifts driven by blow and halloo.
But at length we rumbled over a bridge, there was a sharp call back from our post-boy to him of the chaise behind, and then began that rocking and pitching and swaying and creaking, which was to last the whole night long, save for the brief stops at the post-houses.
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