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BATUM TO TIFLIS 57
the Turks, who kept it till 1878, when it was ceded to Russia,
together with the whole Kars region, after the Russo-Turkish
war. During the three hundred years under Turkish rule
the Christian population had gone over to Islam—partly
compelled by force to do so—and the Christian churches had
been turned into mosques. Wc had one of these mosques
just opposite us. If heretics like ourselves wanted to enter
it wc had to put slippers on our dirty feet. On the other side
of the place, facing the sea, were fortifications with ramparts
and trenches ; and there wc were not allowed to set foot,
even with slippers on.
The great difficulty about using churches as mosques is
that they are orientated west-east, towards the setting and
rising sun, whereas a mosque must point towards Mecca,
which is here to the south. The problem was solved by
putting the costly carpets along the floor of the transepts,
i.e. from north to south. The inhabitants had forgotten their
traditions so completely by 1878, when the country again
came under Christian rule, that they looked upon the
Christians as enemies.
The town still shows signs of the centuries of decay under
Turkish rule ; but it has developed into something like a
European port in the forty years it has been under Russian
administration. A large Russian cathedral was built in 1906,
and one could see little in the streets to remind one of the
Orient or Islam, not even the black-veiled female spectres.
The women wc saw there looked for the most part like
attractive Russians in their Sunday best. There was a striking
and welcome difference between their free and open comrade
ship with the men and all the veiled mystery of the Turkish
seaports wc had come from.
I went for a walk through the town. Though there is
nothing very remarkable about it, it has a fine situation on
the fertile plain, close to the blue sea, and with its snug little
petroleum harbour sheltered by a long jetty ; while the
plain itself is encircled by verdant slopes, rising in ridges and
backed by the blue mountains beyond. The rainfall is
unusually great at all times of year. In Batum the annual
rainfall is about 2-37 m.—rather more than that of Bergen in
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