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BATUM TO TIFLIS 71
bullock-carts, though some had horses. Evidently they
were returning from market in the town ; they had sold their
produce and were now on their way back to their own towns
or villages in the country to the west. There are several
resorts in the same direction, frequented by the citizens of
Tiflis in the hottest months of the summer.
Some buffaloes passed by, black beasts with their horns
laid back, such as one often sees in these parts. I took a
photograph of them, and the two boys in charge of them came
to the car and looked into my camera, wanting to see the
picture of their buffaloes. I took another snåp of their faces ;
they laughed, but were disappointed when they found there
was still no picture to be seen.
Corning down, wc drove round the town, especially through
the old southern part : the Georgian quarter on the left bank
of the Kura, and the Armenian and Persian bazaars on the
right bank. The streets there are narrow and crooked, often
with narrow flights of steps between the houses up the slopes.
The houses are low, one storey or two, of the typical Georgian
kind, with a balcony or open gallery in front of the upper
storey, where the family spend a large part of the day, unless
they sit in the street in front of the house. The fac,ade of the
house is often decorated with handsome carvings.
From morning till night the life in these confined streets
is intensely varied and gay ; donkey-drivers hawk their fruit
and other wares, and now and again a bullock-cart or a horse
drawn wagon rumbles noisily past over the cobbles. Liveliest
of all are the crowds round the bazaars and in the market-place,
where goods of every sort are on sale and all kinds of nation
alities are in evidence : Georgians, Armenians, Jews, Russians,
Persians, Turks, and Tatars, buying and seiling. On the
ground in front of the houses sit whole families working, and
handicraftsmen generally have their workshops in the ’street.
The furniture of their few rooms indoors is simple in the
extreme ; as a rule it is little more than four walls and a floor.
But everywhere there are bright-coloured, costly rugs ; they
are to sit on, and take the place of furniture.
As one looks at these alleys with their motley crowd of
light-hearted people, one cannot help thinking of all the
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