ough vast quantities of sheep are raised in the highlands in the
spring and summer, the flocks being driven down into the plains
to the south in winter.

One of the outstanding features of Russian occupation is the great
Georgian military road which has been built across the mountains of
recent years and maintained by the Government. Its engineering is
masterly; here and there it passes close to or under vast overhanging
lumps of mountainside. Everywhere the greatest care has been taken
of this most important military highway, Russia's avenue into that
country she coveted and fought for so long. Beginning at Vladikavkaz,
it runs through Balta, Lars, thence through the famous Gorge of
Dariel, the "Circassian Gates," the dark and awful defile between
Europe and Asia. The gorge is what the geologists call a "fault,"
for it is not really a pass over the mountain chain, but a rent
clear across it. Seventy years ago it was almost impassable for
avalanches or the sudden outbursts of pent-up glacial streams swept
it from end to end, but the Russians have spent over $20,000,000
on it and made it safe. In 1877, during the Russo-Turkish War,
nearly all the troops and stores for carrying the war into Turkey
and Asia came by this road.

Its importance has since been lessened to a certain degree, for
there is now direct railway communication from Moscow to Baku,
at one end of the Trans-Caucasian Railway, and therefore to Kars
itself, via Tiflis; and equally from Batum to Kars at the other
end to which military steamers can bring troops and supplies from
Odessa and Novorossik in the Black Sea.

The most important city in this region is Tiflis, the "city of
seventy languages." It may, indeed, be called the modern Babel. As
seen from the mountains, it lies at the bottom of a brown, treeless
valley, between steep hills, on either side of the River Kura.

It is a point of great importance to modern Russia. It forms, to
begin with, the end of the great military road across the mountains
which, in spite of the railways, is still the quickest way to Europe
for an army as well as for travelers, and all the mails come over
it by express coaches. From Tiflis a railway runs to Kars, a strong
frontier on the Persian frontier.

Tiflis has been much developed under the Russian Government. In
the modern section of the city the streets are wide and paved and
lighted by electricity and the stores are large and handsome while
electric railways r