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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.
At the third station I was kept waiting three hours for the horses; at the fourth they gave me none, and I was obliged to stay all night, although I had gone only fifty-five wersti the whole day. The character of the country changes before reaching Delischan: the valleys contract to narrow gorges, and the mountains seldom leave space for small villages and plots of ground.
If I wanted bread, or anything that my hosts had not got, I might seek for it myself. As I have said before, it is only for an officer that they will make any exertion. I call that a respectable Russian post! The boat did not start for Redutkale, a distance of eighty wersti, until the morning of the 11th.
Herr Salzmann proposed that I should visit some German settlements, which were situated at about ten or twenty wersti from Tiflis, and offered to accompany me there; but I had not much inclination to do so, more particularly as I had heard everywhere that the settlers had already much degenerated, and that idleness, fraud, dirt, drunkenness, etc., was not less frequent among them than in the Russian colonies.
Until within the last sixty years, it is said that many such dwellings were to be seen in the town of Tiflis. 29th August. This morning I had still one stage of twenty-four wersti ere I reached Tiflis. The road was, as everywhere else, full of holes, ruts and stones.
In addition to this, imagine the rattling of the carriage, and the shouting of the driver, who is always in great activity urging on the poor animals, and it may be easily understood that, as is often the case, the carriage arrives at the station without the travellers. The division of the stations is very irregular, varying from fourteen to thirty wersti.
The botanic garden, three wersti from the town, has few exotic plants, and is much neglected. The autumn changes, which I again saw here for the first time for some years, made a truly sad impression upon me. I could almost have envied the people who live in hot climates, although the heat is very troublesome. The German language is understood by almost all but the lowest orders in Odessa.
After travelling about thirteen wersti, the road winds round a stony hill, and the castle of Prince Woronzoff comes in sight in its entire extent. The appearance of it is not by any means so fine as I had imagined. The castle is built entirely of stone, of the same colour as the neighbouring rocks.
He had just received a decoration from the Russian government, although he was not in their service. Herr Salzmann has built a very handsome house, with every possible convenience for the reception of travellers; besides this he owns a large fruit-garden, ten wersti distant from the town, in the neighbourhood of which are some naphtha springs.
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.