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BATUM TO TIFLIS 75
waving plumes, forests of swaying lances, rearing war-horses,
and shrill bugle-notes as the victors return from their distant
conquests in the east or the west. By this very river, beneath
the selfsame stars, Shot’ha Rust’haveli dreamed and wrote
poems to his queen. They are banqueting in the castle ;
the lights glitter on polished arms and cuirasses, shine on
gay silks and pearls ; tht hall is crowded with courtly knights
and lovely dames. But look, there she stands, tall and queenly.
Her peerless head is set proudly on her majestic shoulders,
her deep eyes shine wondrously in the torchlight ; and like
a flourish of trumpets in the night her nåme resounds :
Thamara !
Alas for us mortals, shut out from these things by the
gulf of ages.
To Mtskhetha.
It had been arranged that on Thursday morning (June i6th)
wc were to drive out and see the work that was being done
on the new Kura power-station, about fifteen kilometres north
of Tiflis. It was solemnly decided that the cars were to fetch
us at nine o’clock sharp ; and with Oriental punctuality they
appeared at eleven. In roasting sunshine wc drove north
ward along the west side of the Kura Valley by a good, wide
road, which is the commencement of Georgia’s big military
road through the Caucasus to Vladikavkas.
Wc had a look at the great dam which was in course of
construction for the power-station. Here, by the ancient
town of Mtskhetha, the Kura Valley narrows, as already
mentioned ; the mountains on either side close in, and at an
earlier period this must have been the outlet of a large lake,
through which the Kura flowed. The river gradually exca
vated its bed deeper and deeper down in the rock, while the
big lake dried up, and its bottom, where the mud deposited
by the river had turned in course of time into a deep layer of
earth, became the present wide and fertile plain above,
stretching westward past Gori in the direction of Suram.
Even now the river drops sharply down its comparatively
narrow bed after joining the river Aragva. It is here that
the dam is being built.
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