Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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We crossed the divide through a long tunnel at an elevation of 3,027 feet and dropped down rapidly into a lovely, wide, level valley, every acre of which is covered to-day with a carpet of living green. The city of Tiflis is 1,355 feet above the sea, about the same latitude as Rome, and has an annual rainfall of nineteen inches, which is sufficient to raise all kinds of staples of the temperate zone without irrigation. Notwithstanding the restless and turbulent disposition of the Georgian and other races who make up the population, the farming element seem to be industrious and prosperous, and although their houses and the manner in which they live, their tools and implements would not be tolerated by an American farmer, their standards of comfort and luxury are not high; they would be, no doubt, contented if they had political liberty and were not so constantly reminded that they are the subjects no longer of a Georgian king, but of a Russian czar. If the government would do something for them to promote their material interests they might be more contented, but the Russian official regards the Georgians as an undisciplined and rebellious race, and as long as such relations continue there cannot be much improvement.