very

although thus by turns overrun and pillaged by Turks, Tartars, and Persians, it never wholly lost its independence, but preserved itself as a kingdom nearly two thousand years; and what is still more to its honor, it preserved its ancient faith in Christianity for fourteen hundred years, in the midst of countries enthusiastically devoted to the Mahommedan religion. The ruins of walls and fortresses, commanding its passes, and perched on the summits of its mountain ridges; the remains of bridges in its streams; the ruins of palaces, churches, and baths, in the midst of which are frequently discovered coins and medals of Media, Parthia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, attest the various nations that have been in possession of Georgia in ancient times.

Towards the close of the last century, the aged Prince HERACLIUS, who had proclaimed himself King of Georgia, took advantage of the anarchy and confusion which existed in Persia, after the death of KUREEM KHAN, and by formal act renounced his dependence upon Persia, after having struggled against the depredations of its inhabitants during his whole reign, and placed himself under the protection of the Russian empress. Subsequently, however, he was obliged to abrogate his alliance with Russia, and to acknowledge himself tributary to Turkey.

At the peace in 1791, Georgia was declared independent, and in 1795, AGA MAHOMMED KHAN, the late king of Persia, advanced to its capital. His first act was an order for the slaughter of every human being in this large and flourishing town-his next was, to set fire to it; and it was totally burnt down. Every brutal excess of cruelty that national hatred, inflamed by bigotry and infernal policy, could dictate, was committed. Pillage, murder, and conflagration met the eye on every side. While some were occupied in plundering the villas of rich merchants, and others in setting fire to the hamlets, the air was rent with the mingled groans of men, women, and children, who were falling under the daggers of the Moslems. The only exception made during the massacre was of the young women and boys, who were preserved only to be sold as slaves. Many of the women, whose husbands had been butchered, were running to and fro frantic, with torn garments and dishevelled hair, pressing their infants to their breasts, and seeking death as a relief from still greater calamities that awaited them! The number of those slain or dragged into slavery on those dreadful days was not less than twenty thousand.

In the following year, this brutal eunuch determined again to visit Georgia, but he had only reached the town of Sheesha, in the fertile district of Karabagh, when his career was arrested by the hand of violence. Two servants, whom he had sentenced to death for a very trivial offence, entered his tent at night, and with their daggers put an end to one of the

H H

most cruel tyrants that ever ruled in Persia. It is beyond the limits of this paper to particularize his cruelties. In the first year of his government, he deprived seventy thousand people of their eyes, and massacred at least a hundred thousand. In Persia (as we all know), they think no more of plucking out an eye, than we do of extracting a tooth.

On the death of HERACLIUS, in 1798, his eldest son, GEORGE HERACLIVITZ, unable to withstand the attacks and intrigues of foreign and domestic enemies, ceded his states (under a stipulation of being handsomely provided for) to the Emperor PAUL, who, deeming it safer to remove the queen and her children to Moscow, commanded that her supposed lover should make the proposal. Fixing her eyes steadily upon him, she said, "Forget not that thou art my subject-repeat not so hateful a proposal, or I shall know how to punish your audacity." Her lover persisted in his entreaties, and in an instant she drew her dagger, and laid him dead at her feet. She was, however, forcibly conveyed along with her two daughters and two sons to St. Petersburg, where they had precedence next to the imperial family, and though deprived of liberty, were liberally treated. Her youngest son, ALEXANDER, possessing an independent spirit, together with an ardent love of country, preferred liberty, although accompanied by every privation; and vowing eternal enmity to Russia, he became a wanderer in the adjacent mountains. His hatred has increased by time, although any thing like resistance to the colossal power of Russia must be perfectly hopeless, even if supported by Persia, with the ruler of which kingdom he is still in constant communication, and watching a favorable opportunity of making the endeavour to recover his lost territory.

The late Emperor ALEXANDER found it expedient to grant to the Khans, or Princes of Daghestan and Shirwan (the ancient Albania), the enjoyment of their former privileges, and indeed, to change little of their ancient customs-except that they were prohibited from selling their children to the Turks and Persians, and of executing summary vengeance on their subjects by mutilation or death. Several examples of severity did not prevent vast emigrations into Georgia. In the year 1820, alone, not less than ten thousand Persian families crossed the boundary, to whom it was intended to assign lands; and both Turks and Armenians are continually placing themselves under the Russian government. The Circassians, however, on the northern frontiers of the Caucasus, still bring up their children for the market of Constantinople. This is done by stealth, for the Russians use every means in their power to prevent the inhabitants quitting the country. In the year 1828, when I crossed the Araxes, the influx had been so great that I met thousands of both sexes, and all ages, returning again to

Persia, and execrating the name of PASKEWITCH, then Governor General of Georgia, to whom they attributed all their misfortunes, and from whom they had received the most flattering but fallacious promises.

The whole of Georgia is beautifully diversified with mountain scenery, gradually spreading out into hill and dale. The climate is delightful, and the country well watered. It is remarkable that in Persia most of the inhabited places are situated in plains and valleys in Georgia, on the contrary, the towns and villages are almost uniformly built upon the sloping sides of hills or heights, after the manner of the hamlets of Koordistan. The scarcity of rain in Persia, and the abundance of water in Georgia, has been assigned as the reason for this difference. The melting of the snows on Mount Caucasus causes floods to pour down from the hills with such violence as to sweep every thing before them. To give an idea of the enormous masses of snow which are constantly thawing during the summer season, I will mention, that in my journey across Caucasus, in August, 1828, a piece of frozen snow had detached itself from a neighbouring peak, and shelved down across the road, covering it to an extent of at least three quarters of a mile, and rendering the passage nearly impracticable. The Koor, however, does not rise above its banks. Generally speaking, the climate is mild and salubriFrom April to November, the sky is for the most part cloudless ; but during the night, the dews are frequently very heavy. As in Persia, the sultry days are not unfrequently succeeded by intensely cold nights. During the other parts of the year, there is no deficiency of rain; and to this circumstance the fertility of Georgia is chiefly attributable. The winters are generally very penetrating; every possible degree of temperature may be had on the sloping spurs of Caucasus.

ous.

Among various indigenous productions may be enumerated the cedar, and other varieties of the pine; the oak, the beech, the elm, the ash, the chesnut, the walnut, the apple, the pear, the citron, the peach, the plum, the apricot, the pomegranate, the raspberry, the quince, and many flowering shrubs, among which the vine entwines itself in wild luxuriance, loaded with the finest grapes. The most numerous, however, and that in which the riches of the country chiefly consist, are mulberry trees, on which they feed an infinite number of silk-worms. Georgia was famed for its silk long before this article found its way into Italy, in the reign of JUSTINIAN. GULDENSTAEDT describes Georgia as most fertile and fruitful. An Asiatic's ideas of fertility differ sufficiently from ours, to explain in part this assertion for to him plantations of olives, almonds, and figs, with which the country is covered, suggests the same associations of plenty that are called up in our minds by rich tracts of corn land.

The same traveller characterises the country as flowing with milk and honey, and it still answers to this description; for it contains the richest pasture lands, and the rocky portions are covered with aromatic plants, yielding to the wild bees who hive in the crevices of hollow trees, such an abundance of honey as to supply the poorer classes with an article of food, and with wax to be exchanged for cloths and stuffs. Honey from the rocks is repeatedly referred to in the Holy Scriptures, as a delicious food, and an emblem of plenty. (1 Sam. xvi. 25: Psalm lxxxi. 16.) GULDENSTAEDT instances the growth of the date tree as a proof of the mildness of the temperature, and when to these we add the oil extracted from the almond (the amygdalus Persica) and olive, we shall be at no loss to account for the ancient fertility of the most barren districts of Georgia, or for the adequacy of the soil to the support of so numerous a population, notwithstanding the comparatively small proportion of arable land: Delicious wine is produced in the districts, and the valleys bear plentiful crops of rice, wheat, millet, and barley; while cotton, flax, and hemp grow spontaneously on the plains bordering the Caspian.

The streams are full of fish, but with the exception of the river Koor, are all brooks or torrents, and therefore unfit for internal navigation. In short, nature has rendered it one of the most beautiful and highly favored countries in the world. Wild animals are not numerous; for every man being armed, they have ever met with constant enemies. On the plains however, there are deer and antelopes; and the pygarg (cervus pygargus), or dishon of the Scriptures, called in Persia aha, bears, wolves, wild boars, and the rock goat (capra Caucasia) delight in the rugged summits of the schistose mountains. The chamois, on the contrary, prefers the lower calcareous hills; as also do the hare, fox, and jackal. In ornithology I can enumerate from my own personal observation the eagle, the falcon (falco tinnunculus), the pheasant, the jack-daw, in the oak-woods; the bee-catcher (merops apiaster), the field lark, the red partridge (petrao rufus), the quail (tetrao coturnix), and the ring-dove. Game is abundant, partridges in particular being found in large coveys, so fat and heavy, that they may easily be knocked down with a stick. The male species is a most beautiful bird. The females are not so prettily marked. Wild-geese, ducks, snipe, and water-fowl of every description abound in some situations. I have seen several large snakes, but the only one much dreaded is a small slender species, spotted black and white, the bite of which is said to be instantly fatal. Flies of every · species are annoying in the hot-weather, and a species of ant (termes fatalis, is very numerous.

Georgia was formerly celebrated for its mineral treasures, but its mines have been neglected, and now produce but little. Gold, silver, and iron

are found in the mountain range of Caucasus. Coal is also said to abound in different parts of the country. STRABO goes so far as to assert that the numerous small rivers carry down gold dust in vast quantities, which being stopped by sheep skins, placed on purpose, furnishes an explanation of the fable of the golden fleece, (Strabo, xi. passim.)

I was assured that the total population of Georgia is four hundred thousand, of whom ninety thousand are Armenians, following chiefly the rites of the Greek Church, and partly their own. There are at least seventy thousand Russian and Georgian troops stationed throughout the districts. The number of the inhabitants is doubtless increasing, as previous to its connexion with Russia, the people were sadly reduced by the constant dissentions of the chiefs, who, possessed of unlimited power over their vassals, chose to be eternally at war with each other, chiefly, if not entirely, with a view of making prisoners of both sexes, for the harams of the Turks and Persians. The incursions of these latter, moreover, utterly desolated from time to time the provinces on the frontier. In 1603, when that accomplished despot SHAH ABBAS marched into Georgia, he carried off no less than ten thousand families; but as a striking proof of his beneficent despotism, instead of making them slaves, and compelling them to change their religion, as his predecessors had done in similar cases, he settled them in different parts of his kingdom, and afforded them every encouragement. The Armenian colony formed by him at Ispahan remains an honorable monument of his wise and liberal policy. These drawbacks, however, on population have of late years ceased, and it is said, that the measures now adopted for the encouragement of agriculture and commerce have already produced the best effects. The capital is rising from a dismal-looking town into a cheerful bustling city, and its population, which, in the year 1826, was only 26,000, has risen in four years to 33,000. It would be superfluous to allude to the beauty of the women of Georgia, which has become so proverbial. Their symmetrical form and regular features might serve as the model for the finest statues. "It is in Georgia," says the elegant GIBBON," that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression of the countenance. The men,” he adds, are formed for action, and the women for love." Yet, HERODOTUS says, that the natives, in his time, were dark complexioned (ueλarxpoes) and had crisp, curling hair (ovλoтpikes); such is the change produced by the mixture of nations, and the slow but powerful influence of climate. The women, however, not satisfied with the prodigality of nature, have recourse to the odious use of paint; and although this is considered indicative of want of chastity, it does not prevent the beauties of Georgia using