I paid twenty
kopecs (8d.) for a dirty room without a bed, and as much for a
chicken. Beyond that I had nothing, for the people are too lazy to
fetch what they have not by them. 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 had left Tiflis about 3 in the afternoon of the 5th of September,
and reached this place in the evening of the 9th, five days to
travel 274 wersti (195 miles). 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. It was bad weather; and the Ribon,
otherwise a fine river, cannot be navigated during a strong wind, on
account of the projecting trunks of trees and logs. The scenery
still continued beautiful and picturesque. The stream flows between
woods, maize, and millet fields, and the view extends over hills and
mountains to the distant and gigantic Caucasus. Their singular
forms, peaks, sunken plateaus, split domes, etc.
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