ts bed too deeply to admit of that being done along its
course. The Lenkoran district, sometimes called Talysh, on the western
side of the Kizil-Agach bay, is blessed with a rich vegetation, a
fertile soil, and a moist climate.

The inhabitants of the Kura valley consist principally of Iranian
Tates and Talyshes, of Armenians and Lesghians, with Russians, Jews
and Arabs. This conjoint valley of the Rion-Kura was in remote
antiquity the site of several Greek colonial settlements, later the
seat of successive kingdoms of the Georgians, and for centuries it has
formed a bulwark against hostile invasions from the south and east. It
is still inhabited chiefly by Georgian tribes--Gurians, Imeretians,
Mingrelians, Svanetians--in the basin of the Rion, and by Georgians
intermingled with Armenians in the valley of the Kura, while the
steppes that stretch away from the lower course of the latter river
are ranged over by Turko-Tatars. Mingrelia and Imeretia (valley of
Rion) are the gardens of Caucasia, but the high valleys of Svanetia,
farther north on the south slopes of the Caucasus mountains, are wild
and difficult of access. In the cultivated parts the land is so
exceedingly fertile and productive that it sells for almost fabulous
prices, and its value is still further enhanced by the discovery of
manganese and copper mines in the basin of the Rion, and of the almost
inexhaustible supplies of naphtha and petroleum at Baku in the
Apsheron peninsula. The principal products of the soil are mentioned
lower down, while the general character of the vegetation is
indicated under CAUCASUS: _Western Caucasus._ In the basin of the
Rion, in that of the Chorokh (which runs off the Pontic highlands into
the Black Sea south of Batura), and on the Black Sea littoral from
Batum northwards to Sukhum-kaleh, and beyond, the climate is extremely
hot and the rainfall heavy (see under _Climate_ below). It is in this
valley that the principal towns (except Vladikavkaz at the north foot
of the Caucasus) of Caucasia are situated, namely, Baku (179,133
inhabitants in 1900), Tiflis (160,645 in 1897), Kutais (32,492), and
the two Black Sea ports of Batum (28,512) and Poti (7666).

(iv.) The _highlands of Armenia_ are sometimes designated the Minor
Caucasus, Little Caucasus and Anti-Caucasus. But to use such terms for
what is not only an independent, but also an older, orographical
f