' Myhako and Eghyatl are, I believe, names common enongh in Hungary; Yerdjestchann is Peisian; Yesma somewhat afsimilates the Arabic Djesma; Fatmani reminds us of Fatima; and Meraba, a name given to men in Letchgoumm, we lind as Merab in I Sam. liv. 49, who was a daughter of Saul.
' There are about fifty Jewish families in Letchgoumm, and forty in the neighbounng diMrkt of Rodtcha.
by Google been despatched earlier in the day under escort, in chaise of one Stcpann Tchaboukyany of Lyaylyash, an honest and hardy mountaineer, thoroughly acquainted with Swannety, and who ever disdained to mount a horse.
We forded the Ladjanoura. at Orpely, where the stream was much swollen and rapid, our horses being only just able to stem the current. On reaching the opposite bank the interpreter was missed, but he rejoined us late in the evening, pleading his inability to swim and furthermore his being a married man, for having sought a safer crossing a long way up the valley. Abore Orpely is a fortress of the same name, a stronghold of the sovereigns of Mingrelia, now the property of the Dadian;' we rode past it up the declivities above the village in the midst of vineyards where the plants clustered about trees and poles to the height of twelve or fourteen feet, as they are sometimes seen growing in Italy, a mode continued from the time of Vii^il.
The swerving vines on the tall elms prevail, Unhurt by southern show'rs or northern hail.
... and first the props return
Into thy house, that bore the burden'd vines— GEORGICS, ii.
The pass of Orpely, an easy ascent overgrown with wood,
divides the valley of the Ladjanoura from that of the Tzhenyst^kalys, ' Horse river,* which I believe to be the Hippus of Strabo as set forth elsewhere; in the Armenian chronicles the Thak\-err,
as this river was anciently called, is stated to have been named tiie
Tzhenys-tzkalys because 60,000 horsemen of the army of Mourwann were engulfed in it, when on their retreat from Anacopia,
the capital of Abhase, in 861.
' It is staled that the Dadian, or prince of Mingrelia, has 400,000 drsyal}iis of landed property in I«tc1igounim and Mingrelia, which yield Ihe disproportlonire reienoc of 80,000 roubles, owing to the want of manual labour.
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[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
In the plain of Moury, the Chief was met by Sidonia the 2,050' mamasaklysy? who led the way to our quarters for the night, a iittle cottage belonging to the Dadian, situated at the foot of a cliff" crowned by a fortress of the MingreUan sovereigns. It was at this domain, Moury-tzykh^, that the Princess Dadian took Anal refuge with her children, after her first flight to Gondy from the expected advance of Omar Pasha after the battle of the Ingour, in November 1855; but that commander, who was on the march to Koutals, got no farther than the Tzhenys-tzkalys, from which position he received orders to withdraw after the fall of Kars.
A few versts from Moury is the Monastery of Tsagh^ry, at one time the residence of the bishop of Letchgoumm and Swannety;
another monastery, that of Maximus the Confessor, is on a hill above it They are both sanctuaries of great antiquity, hut now of little interest.
' The altitudes aliove the sea given in the margin, are readirtgS from a compensated pocket barometer, with altilude scale to 12,000 feet.
■ Each niamasatlysy was in atlendance on the Colonel as fat as Ihc limils of his;, where he was relieved by the mamasaMysy of the next commune.
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CHAPTER XXXII.
FORTY-NINTH TO FIFTY-FIRST DAY.
A hermit's rctreal — The valley of the Tihenys-tikalys — Scripture history — Cretins of the valley — A prince's residence — Tenghyz Didysbkylyany — Disaffection of his family — Submission to Russia— Swanny form of oath— A night at Tchaloury — Ascent of Latpary — The escort made meiiy — Descent to the Ingour— The Horn— I jlhory— Night encampment— The rleclions— Vox populi — The swearing in — Mountnineer songs and dances— Cossack
Upon leaving Moury at nine this morning, we crossed the Tzhenys-tzkalys over a wooden bridge and stopped to see a cave in which a monk had solitaiily spent twenty years; the entrance had been closed with a stone wall, a small opening having been left through which to pass his food, brought to him by the monks at Tsagh^ry, When his seclusion was disturbed ten years ago, during the construction of a road in front ol the wall that divided him from the outer world, he removed elsewhere, and is now spending the remainder of his days far away from the haunts ol men. Ledges in the natural formation of the rock supplied his bed-place and reading-desk in the cell blackened with the smoke of his fires.
We proceeded by a narrow path of considerable length and many turnings, over the rocky slopes of the mountains, sufficiently rough and dangerous in some places to necessitate our dismounting and leading the horses. Above the river's left bank