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quantity of gold paint, giving it the | the firs and pines of the higher Caumost brilliant appearance, a fit setting casus, for the elevation of Tiflis allows for the gorgeous semi-European, semi- of the growing of both. These gardens, Oriental crowds that flock its salons on half wild, half tended, form a most reception nights. Next to the palace attractive spot. Below them tumbles stands the new cathedral, now nearly an affluent of the Kur in a series of falls completed. It is built in Byzantine and cascades, while above tower the style, much gilded and bedomed, and ruins and the mountains beyond. From though, perhaps, a trifle gaudy, seems these gardens I climbed and scrambled exactly suited to the place and climate. by a mere track up to the little monIt is a building of great size, and forms astery and church of St. David, perched already the handsomest and most almost in the face of the precipice high magnificent structure in the town. Not above the town. From this spot a far from this spot is the excellent panorama of Tiflis and the surrounding museum-which, again, is entirely ow- country is obtained, and the exertion ing to Russian influence-where can be of the cliff climb is well repaid; the seen a remarkable collection of things view of the town is admirable, and typical of Transcaucasia, from life-size stretched out before one is the magnifiwax groups of the types of the tribes, cent prospect of the peaks of the to the various household utensils in use Caucasus. The church is named after in the thousand and one valleys of the David, the Syrian Father, who resided mountains. But to the sportsman the here. The first structure was erected principal attraction will be the large in the fourteenth century, though the collection of the stuffed animals and present edifice is of more recent date. birds of the country, from the magnifi- The latter owes its material to the cent wild cattle from Elburz to the barren women of the neighborhood, tigers of Lenkoran. Under Dr. Radde, who, in their desire for offspring, bore the curator of the museum, the collec- up upon their shoulders all the material tion has largely increased, and is still of which the church is built. In spring increasing. they still pay pilgrimages to the spot. Two tombs of widely different men and different times lie beneath the floor of the church, that of St. David himself, and the other of Gryboiedoff, the Russian author, who was murdered, together with all his suite, when filling the post of Russian minister at Teheran in 1828. His remains, after being exposed to the fury of the fanatical mob for three days, were, it is said, only recognizable from a scar upon one of his hands.

Before one turns one's steps to explore Oriental Tiflis, with its mazes of narrow streets and bazaars, there remain yet a few sights to see in the more modern town. Especially attractive are the public gardens, situated on the left bank of the Kur, some little way removed from the centre of the town. Here, at times, an excellent military band discourses music, and all the fashionable world of Tiflis parades. It is difficult, then, when walking under shady trees, surrounded by a welldressed European crowd, to imagine oneself in an Asiatic town. Nor are these public gardens the sole resort that the traveller can find to walk in at leisure; below the crumbling walls of the ruins of the Georgian and Persian fortresses the government has laid out a botanical garden, where most of the trees and shrubs indigenous to the country can be seen, examples ranging from the mere luxurious vegetation of the Black and Caspian seaboards, to

Of European Tiflis there remains but little to be said, unless it be to recognize the great comforts of that most excellent hostelry, the Hotel de Londres, over which Madame Richter and her son so ably preside, and which well bears out its reputation of being one of the most comfortable hotels, not only in Russia, but almost in the world. And none knows better than the traveller how much of his pleasure depends upon the quarters he finds to lodge in. One other fact, too, remains

to be noticed, the entire absence of the continental system of "cafés;" search far and wide there is nothing that answers to the idea of the "café" of France and Europe in general.

From the civilized part of Tiflis, with its handsome streets and shops, it is little more than a step to the maze of winding alleys and narrow byeways that form the Oriental quarter and the bazaars. It is here probably that the traveller will find most to interest him, | for though the bazaars offer but little attraction to him who is conversant with those of Persia and the East, any one fresh from Europe cannot fail to be struck with their characteristics. What a bustle and stir of life there is there! what mud in wet weather, and dust in fine! what dirt in both! Buc, suffer as one may from either, or from the pushing, brawling crowd of humanity, and the offensive smells with which the streets are filled, no one ought to be deterred from a leisurely stroll through the Oriental town.

Cosmopolitan as this quarter is, it possesses characteristics to be seen probably nowhere else in the world. The great ill-built caravanserais, with their overhanging balconies of painted and carved wood, belong neither to Russia or Persia, though the "samovar" -urn-and “kalyan"-water-pipe-hail from each respectively, and without a number of both no balcony, and scarcely a shop, is complete. Often the footpath for passengers consists of a narrow curb-stone from which the wayfarer is hustled and bustled by the hurrying crowd, only to be hurled back again against the walls of the houses by a lumbering camel which usurps all the room and all the sound of the street by its awkward bulk and its clanging bells. Everywhere are strange narroweyed Tartars and Turkis of northern Persia, hailing one another in unknown guttural tongues; gaily dressed Georgians and natives of Daghestan, gaudy with weapons; cringing Jews and Armenians; policemen yelling out orders which seem never to be obeyed -a very Babel of nations and languages, such as must delight the heart

of the traveller. Every now and then rattles by some open wagon, painted scarlet and green, with the "ivoshik" yelling to the crowd to make way, as the clumsy wheels scatter people and mud right and left. Then down through the narrow arched arcade in which the gloomy Persians, in a gloomy atmosphere, vend their wares, and out amongst the great tall caravanserais that stand on either side of one of the bridges over the Kur, under which the turbid yellow stream whirls and tumbles, as if anxious to fly the dirt and noise of the city. Then back through the open bazaars, where sit the armorers, the silversmiths, the vendors of musical instruments and curios, of carpets and furs, of wines and comestibles. Everywhere there is something to see, something to interest. Here, perhaps, one stands to look at the furriers' goods, from neat little lambskin caps for the Georgians, to the huge ugly overgrown mushroom-like headgear of the Tartars; here again, the armorers attract one with their display of a strange mixture of Eastern and Western goods, from Smith and Wesson revolvers-made in Russia-to Daghestan daggers, old flint-lock guns with inlaid stocks, and swords and knives from everywhere. Thence on to the silversmiths where are the bowls from which the pleasure-seeking Georgian loves to quaff his wine, and the noted "niello" work of the country with its designs in black on a silver ground. Then, again, one pauses to listen as a vendor of long key-boarded guitars strikes some little plaintive melody from the thin strings.

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I spent Easter in Tiflis, and thus had opportunity of witnessing the beautiful service which, in the Orthodox Church, marks the end of Lent. The ritual of the Russian Church, together with the architecture and decoration of the churches, lends not a little to the impressiveness of such scenes, and the old Byzantine cathedral of Tiflis formed as picturesque a background to the religious ceremony as could well be imagined. On account of the crowd that throngs the midnight

service that ushers in the great national holiday of Russia, it is necessary to take one's stand-for there are no seats -at an early hour, and I had already been in the cathedral for nearly three hours when the ceremony commenced. There is no necessity here to enter into any of the details of the ritual of this beautiful service of the Orthodox Church, for at this spot am dealing with it solely as an effect, a most telling reminiscence of a visit to Tiflis.

incense-laden twilight, one recognized now the officers of the government, in uniforms bespangled with orders, accompanied by their wives and daughters, and, beyond, a vision of a thousand upturned faces full of reverence and attention. The altar, now a blaze of light, sparkled and shone with its treasures, and the richly jewelled mitres and cloth of gold robes of the priests dazzled the eyes.

Then, as the congratulations of Easter were taking place, I pushed my way out through the crowd into the brightly illuminated streets, in time to see the governor-general drive away, escorted by his bodyguard of Cossacks, who galloped beside his carriage, bearing blazing torches on long poles.

The service commences in the dull gloom, for with the exception of a few lights upon, and in the vicinity of, the altar, the church is unlit. But this gloom tends to heighten the effect of the group of richly robed and mitred priests that throng the steps, chanting in turn with the choir of unaccompanied Easter Sunday was high holiday; boys' and men's voices the music of every man, woman, and child in their the service. In contrast to the group best clothes, intent upon pleasure and about the altar steps was the dark enjoyment, and the public gardens heaving crowd, half hidden in the were thronged, while military bands filmy clouds of the incense and the dusk made music. What an echoing and reof the building. At length as midnight echoing of congratulations; what a approached the priests and choir filed bowing to the revered "ikons" at the down the church and left the building church doors and street corners; and, as by the main entrance, one or two alone the day progressed, what a number of remaining within. Then, as a rocket men who had enjoyed themselves a without gave the sign of midnight, a loud | little too much. But there was no fightknocking commenced at the door, which ing, no roughness, and the police are was repeated several times. On the lax upon this great feast, and, as long gate being opened the priests and choir as no fighting takes place, do not hurried in, crying out again and again, interfere. The streets are full of "Christ is risen! Christ is risen!" | hurrying "droshkies," with their burEach bore in his hand a lighted taper, from which the nearer members of the crowd lit their own, passing the flame from candle to candle, for every one in the building bore a taper. It took but a minute to change the entire scene, and as the priests made their way to the altar, swinging their censors as they went, the gloom of the church disappeared, and the building was lit by thousands upon thousands of candles-where, before, the dusk had prevented one seeing either the church or the crowd, every picture and detail of the decoration of the building, and every figure in it, became distinct. The seething mass of humanity took form and shape, and where before one recognized only dark figures in an

dens of officers in uniforms and ladies, paying their visits of congratulation, or driving to the palace. Ay! Easter Sunday in Tiflis is a sight to be seen, and never have I witnessed, in spite of its various nationalities, a betterbehaved crowd-though sometimes far from sober-than thronged the streets and gardens on this feast-day.

Such, briefly, is Tiflis; a city presenting two entirely different characteristics, the Oriental, in its decadence, and the Western civilization that Russia has brought with her, sweeping before her all that is rude and out-worn, and, in place thereof, raising a city of which any country in the world might well be proud.

WALTER B. HARRIS.

From The Cornhill Magazine.

THE DANE AT HOME.

One

The Dane is a good fellow. comes, I think, inevitably to this conclusion after a somewhat intimate acquaintance with him. His country also is not the tame, uninteresting tooth of land one is prone to fancy from the summary of it given by the geography books.

To get in touch with the Danes and Denmark proper, it is desirable not to sojourn too long in the towns. They are called towns, these little red-roofed, stork-inhabited, stone-paved settlements of from two to thirty thousand souls. But really they are nothing better than tolerably developed villages. The tone of existence in them is distinctly parochial and bucolic. Flocks and herds make noises in the streets, the people have mirrors affixed to their windows to give them sly yet exhilarating glimpses of the passers-by, and the stranger within their bounds is marked down in a moment, and becomes a most welcome topic of conjecture and an object for all eyes to fasten upon. They are SO very rural, in fact, that the white mist, which in the gay summer season rises about bedtime from the rich grass lands in the neighborhood, has no difficulty towards midnight in covering them with its film and keeping them (storks and all) as cool as it keeps the grass blades in the meadows. The one or two high chimneys in their midst must not be taken for indications of ironworks or factories. Thither night and day clatter the milk carts with milk from the farms for miles round; and in them butter is made on behalf of an entire district for shipment to England. If there is another building of some size in the place, you may safely assume that it is a slaughter-house. The slaughter-house, like the dairy, is closely connected with England. Wagon-loads of carcases go from its gates periodically towards the nearest railway station, whence they journey at a dismal rate to Esbjerg, the chief port of shipment to Great Britain.

The people are divisible roughly into

but two classes-farmers and their dependants (including the tradesmen who live on both), and professional men. In Jutland, at any rate, one sees very few estates like those of our hereditary aristocrats, and one hears nothing at all about noblemen. The land is studded, from the German frontier to the Skaw, with countless little sturdy farmsteads separated from each other by nothing but the level fields and meadows of their freeholds. Trees in West Jutland are rare; hedges do not exist. The streams are trivial and meander deep set in the country, hid by the luxuriant flowery meads that clasp them closely. You may get an horizon of low moorland hills, beaded with little swellings-the graves of the old Danes; or you are free to guess where the land ends and the sky begins. If you are near a house, you will also be near the various plaintive kine, sheep and lambs and horses that are tethered in the grass contiguous to the road. These quadrupeds know no freedom in Denmark. They are always a prey to nerves and the curiosity that is the outcome of their restricted mode of life. They scent the stranger afar off, and proclaim their anxiety both with their throats and their terrified leaps and bounds. The sluggish Danish trains move them to frenzy as they saunter past them. Yet they are Denmark's chief aids to a livelihood-they and the vast fields of rye, thickly sown and so greatly beautified with blue cornflowers. The perfume of clover is over all the land, travelling on the genial breath of the west wind. It seems to intoxicate the larks with rapture; they are singing above it as fervently at half past nine at night as at five o'clock in the morning. And as much as anything else, it reconciles the tourist to the lack of the sensational in Denmark's landscapes.

They live full lives here in the dog days. I know not why, considering how little north of us Jutland is, its days should be, as they are, so emphatically longer than ours in midsummer. I have, on the Limfiord (latitude 57°) read the newspaper in my bedroom at

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half past ten P.M. without the aid of a candle. While I read, the villagers played skittles in the alley under my window; and beyond the hoary chestnut-trees of the garden (with clots of starlings on their bare top boughs) the sky was still crimson and gold in the west, with the long woolly lines of vapor only just beginning to swathe the land like a blanket. On the other side of the inn the traffic was as vigorous then as at noonday. Carriers' carts creaked up to the door and dray-loads of squeaking pigs made other music than the lark's. Double chaises, with cushions of red or green velvet, and half-a-dozen happy villagers to each (the men all with great china-bowled pipes in their mouths) swung lazily by, raising a dust. And the lowing of troubled cows and calves came as much from the road as from the illimitable meadow beyond, attached to the historic old manor-house (now a mere dairy farm), whose buildings were quite concealed by the tall trees that girdle them. The inn damsels, sewing-girls, kitchenmaids, the daughters of the house, and a friend or two had now set aside all the cares of the day, and were rolling each other about on the dewy grass under the chestnut-trees like so many lambkins. Little they cared for Prim Propriety, with the pursed lip and the demure eye. And the landlady with the immeasurable waist, who by day held all the maids leashed to their respective tasks with inflexible yet not unkind severity, stood in the doorway, with her fat beringed fingers in her yielding sides, and disturbed the starlings periodically with her stentorian peals of laughter at the antics of her dependants. Yet at five o'clock the next morning, with her own Rhadamanthine hand, she will pull the bell-rope that shall awaken each lass; and by six the establishment will be again in a normal state of activity. As for the worthy landlord, he is haymaking until 11 P.M., and it will be odd if he is not up before his dame wakes every soul in the house with her call-bell.

This, be it understood, was ten miles from a railway station. Not that the

train makes so much difference in Denmark. It does not, as with us, carry with it, wherever it appears, sentence of death to the old picturesque order of things. No, indeed. I have frequently spent four hours in it in the effort to cover forty miles. The railway here is a State concern, and it is just for all the world as if the State said to itself: "I love my few children so dearly, and they are so indispensable as taxpayers, that I will never, never risk their precious lives in my trains. Besides, coal is so terribly expensive in Denmark, and after all it does not matter much to the majority of my people whether they travel at ten miles an hour or thirty." I met an agreeable young butter merchant from England in one of the towns, who told me he did all his journeying in Denmark on a cycle. It saved his time, to say nothing of his temper. The Danes who heard this avowal were not humiliated. They merely smiled in the courteous Danish way and pleaded guilty; nor did they anathematize the State. And yet they were town Danes, living within sound of the bells of a cathedral nearly a thousand years old, and with two daily papers of their very own to stimulate their activities. Theirs was a town with all the ordinary appliances and institutions of a high state of civilization, including telephones and electric bells to its bettermost houses, and with a charming pleasure-wood in which was a "café chantant" where, in 1895, that sublime song "Ta-ra-ra boomde-ay," sung to accompaniments from divers lands, created a riot of enthusiasm. Yet it had not inspired them with a yearning to move fast through life.

I like all the Danes, from the professionalists, as they are called, to the stolid little country children who "cap" so assiduously to the stranger man. But with this proviso: that they have not adulterated their native character with too much of the tincture of cosmopolitanism. The American Dane is often a highly unpleasing specimen of a man. He has assimilated perforce much of the vulgarity and dollar-wor

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