The
petroleum is supplied to the smaller tank on the engine through a pipe,
as is water to the reservoir.

Such villages as we pass are the most unlovely clusters of mud hovels
imaginable. Only the people are interesting, and the life of the railway
itself. The Circassian peasantry are picturesque in bright colors, and
the thin veneering of Western civilization spread over the semi-barbarity
of the Russian officials and first-class passengers is an interesting
study in itself.

We have been promising ourselves a day in Tiflis, the old Georgian
capital, and now the head-quarters of the Russian army of the Caucasus,
which our friends of the French scientific party said we would find
interesting.

We find it both pleasant and interesting, for here are all modern
improvements of hotel and street, as well as English telegraph officers,
one a former acquaintance at Teheran. Tiflis now claims about one hundred
and sixty thousand inhabitants, and is situated quite picturesquely in
the narrow valley of the Kur. The old Georgian quarters still retain
their Oriental appearance--gabled houses, narrow, crooked streets, and
filth. The modernized, or European, portion of the city contains broad
streets, rows of shops in which is displayed everything that could be
found in any city in Europe, and street-railways.

These latter were introduced in 1882, and at first met with fierce
antagonism from the drosky-drivers, who swarm here as in every city in
Russia. These wild Jehus of the Caucasus expected the tram-cars to turn
out the same as any other vehicle. Four people were killed by collisions
the first day. Severe punishment had to be resorted to in order to stop
the hostility of the drosky-drivers against the strange innovation.

The day is spent in seeing the city and visiting the hot sulphur baths
and in the evening we attend a big bal masque in a suburban garden. A
regimental band of fifty pieces plays "Around the World," by order of
Prince Nicholas F, who exerts himself to make things pleasant for us in
the garden. The famed beauties of Georgia, Circassia, and Mingrelia,
masked and costumed, promenade and waltz with Russian officers, and
sometimes join Circassian officers in a charming native dance.

We spend our promised clay in Tiflis, enjoy it thoroughly, and then
proceed to Batoum. The Tiflis railway-station is a splendid building,
with fountains and broad nights of stone terrace leading up to it from
the street behind.