On clearing the land there appears to the north of Poti, beyond the plains of Mingrelia and Imeritia, an isolated-looking eminence called the Letchgo&tmkaya garh; the prominent position of this mountain, as it appears to mariners, suggests the idea that it may have presented itself to the ancients as being the rock of Prometheus. On passing Cape Kodor, where the coast is low but well wooded, the attention is attracted by a large-looking edifice that overtops the trees; it is the old archiepiscopal church trf Dranda.
At 5 P.M. we anchored off Soukhoum-Kaleh, where a body of police were obstructing the pier, and requiring every passenger to show his passport on landing. It is a good maxim never to speak other than one's own language in the presence of difficulties in a
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foreign country; I therefore held my peace when asked for my passport, which I had lefl en board, and after persistently repeating, AnglyUfianyn, ' Englishman,' was permitted to move on, while several travellers without their papers, having ventured upon offerii^ explanations, had to return to the ship to procure them. I afterwards learned that an Italian who attempted to land later in the evening, was arrested and carried off to prison, being the person of whom the police were in search.
The natives of Abhase, of which Soukhoum-Kaleh is the most important town, are mentioned for the first time as the Abaschi by Arrian; according to Pallas, their national appellation is Absni. The Abhases are at once distinguished from other populations by the dark brown clothing and ^Vi' 61/^, or basklyk, universally worn by them; they are always armed, the most needy even having the cartridge-sockets sewn to the breasts of their coats, are a wild race, second only to their neighbours the Swanny in lawlessness, and addicted to thieving, one of their oldest characteristics, for in ancient times the people on these shores were formidable corsairs. The Abhases are an indolent people, whose only pursuit is that of rearing cattle, although their rich forests are capable of abundant supply; they are till and slight in appearance, with gaunt hungry features and rough manners. Many were converted to Christianity in the reign of Justinian, but their churches have disappeared and they themselves have long since relapsed into heathenism, for the Abhases are truly heathen. They speak a dialect assimilating that of the Circassian tribes, and not understood by their neighbours on the south and east. Mr. Hyde Clarke tells us that he observed resemblances between the Absni or Abkhass language of the Caucasus and those of northern Africa, an opinion confirmed on later examination.'
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Evliya EtTcndt relates that in his time ' the Abhases had the custom of putting the body after death into a wooden coffin, which was suspended to the branch of a tree; near the head of the cofHn was made a hole, that the deceased might look through it to heaven; bees entered the coffin and made honey, enclosing the body in it completely; at the proper season the coffin was opened, the honey taken out and sold.' I have it on the authority of a Russian gentleman who is in the habit of spending much of his time shooting in the mountains, and yachting off their coast, that it is still the custom amoi^ some of the Abhases to suspend their dead to the branches of trees in their forests, which creak as they are swayed by the wind, and produce melancholy and mournful sounds.
The Genoese, who had extensive commercial relations with the Caucasus, founded a colony here, the earliest mention of the appointment of one of their consuls being in 1354. But there must have been a considerable community of Christians fnam the West at Sebastopoli,' or Senascopoli, previous to this date, for in the reign of ' the first knight of Europe*, our
Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow From haughty Gallia torn,
the place was a bishop's see, as would appear by a letter that was addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of England collectively, by Peter bishop of Senascopoli,' in which that prelate complains of ' the oppression practised on the Christians in the East, who are carried ofT into slavery, an infamous traffic he is unable to suppress, because the local authorities who be-
' See vol. i. p. 19 Tor ihis name.