CHAPTER XVII.
WHEREIN IS RELATED A VERY CURIOUS ADVENTURE, WHICH TERMINATES THE FIRST PART OF THIS HISTORY.
Abkasia is a province by itself in the midst of the Caucasian region, in which only a military jurisdiction prevails. It is bounded on the south by the River Ingour, whose waters form the boundary of Mingrelia, one of the principal divisions of the government of Koutaïs.
It is a beautiful province, one of the richest in the Caucasus, but the prevailing system is not one to display its wealth to the best advantage. The inhabitants have scarcely yet begun to be proprietors of the soil, which belongs almost entirely to the reigning princes, descended from a Persian dynasty. So the native is still in a semi-savage condition, possessing little idea of time, without any written language, and speaking a kind of patois which his next neighbours can scarcely understand; and such a poor patois, too, that it lacks words to express the most elementary idea.
Van Mitten was not slow to remark the great difference which existed between this country and the districts through which he had already passed. On the left of the road were fields of maize, very few of corn; goats and sheep, well tended; oxen, horses, cows wandered at liberty in the meadows; there were fine trees, white poplars, fig-trees, nut-trees, oaks, limes, plane-trees, extensive thickets of box and holly: such is the appearance of Abkasia. As an intrepid traveller—Madame Serena—has remarked, "If one compares the three provinces of Mingrelia, Samourzakan, and Abkasia, one may say that their civilization respectively is in the ratio of the culture of the hills which surround them. Mingrelia, which socially is the foremost, has wooded and cultivated heights; Samourzakan, already behindhand, presents a half-savage aspect; Abkasia, last
