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BATUM TO TIFLIS 61
imaginable kind, and the tall trunks of the trees were swathed
right up to their leafy crowns with creepers which hung in
swaying garlands from the boughs.
But here and there this idyllic beauty was marred by brown
patches of death—tall eucalyptus and pine trees stricken by
the devastating frosts of the past winter.
Now and then wc saw tea-plantations cultivated in terraces ;
and down on the level, tall dense-growing thickets of bamboos.
The bold notes of the reed-warbler reached us as wc sped
past sedgy marshes, and wc heard nightingales singing in the
woods. Occasionally, too, an insistent chorus of frogs from
some pool.
At the stations wc passed there were throngs of merry
holiday-makers who had come out for the day from Batum.
Handsome women in light summer dresses made patches of
bright colour against the dark overhanging foliage as they
waved to us—very different from the secluded women of the
Moslem world. Everywhere Nature’s abundant horn of
plenty overflowed with summer and mirthful joy of life.
By and by wc left the coast and entered a wide plain where
the woods had been destroyed and the ground was entirely
covered by bracken and low bushes. Not a soul to be seen
anywhere, and no sign of cultivation ; vet from the tram it
looked as if all this country could be cultivated and support
thousands of refugees, even if the soil was rather poor and
sandy. Fancy if all this vast area of ground could be tilled
in peace. There would be room for thousands of happy
hornes on it.
The sun had gone down over the rim of the Black Sea.
Far away to the north lay a range of blue mountains with
white peaks floating above them. It was the Caucasus—
where the Titan of the human mmd, who stole the fire from
the gods, is chained to the rock while an eagle tears at his
heart-strings. An allegory of the mmd’s never-ending straggle
to east off its earthly fetters.
Wc were approaching the wide plain in which the river
Rion flows—the ancient Phasis which watered the wealthy
country of Colchis, the land of Aurora, whither the legendary
ram fled and was sacrificed on the strand in the fire of sunrise,
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