try of the Adjars is
very mountainous indeed, and quite impracticable except on foot,
being covered with dense forests."

Of Ani, the ancient, once famous, and now deserted capital of Armenia,
he gives the following picture:--

"We passed through Ani, the ancient capital of Armenia. This city
is completely deserted, and has splendid churches still standing
in it. These churches are capitally built and preserved. Some
coloured drawings on their walls are to be seen even now. The
towers and walls are almost intact, but the most extraordinary
thing about so large a place is the singular quietness. There are
many ruined cities in the neighbourhood, and all dating from
about the eleventh century. At that period Ani itself contained
100,000 inhabitants and 500 churches, which shows that more
people went to church among them than with us. Before the end of
that century it passed into the hands of the Greeks and Saracens.
Afterwards the Mongols took it, and at last an earthquake drove
out the remaining inhabitants in 1339, since which time it has
been perfectly deserted. The churches of Ani were built with
lava, and crosses of black lava were let in very curiously into
the red lava. With the exception of the churches and the king's
palace, the city is level with the ground, the foundations of the
houses being alone discernible. These churches were covered with
Armenian inscriptions cut on the walls."

The delimitation work in itself was uninteresting, being carried on in
barren and solitary regions where there was nothing but rock, without
either grass or inhabitants. Gordon said he would not take thirty
square miles for a gift, and yet the Turks and Russians clung to it,
bringing witnesses from among the tribes who would swear whatever they
were paid for. The question at issue was where the old frontier
between the Persian province of Erivan and the Pashalik of Baizeth was
fixed. The Persians ceded the province of Erivan to Russia in 1828,
and both the Turks and Russians had their own, and necessarily
conflicting, views as to where the frontier was. General Gordon's own
belief that there had never been any real frontier at all was no doubt
the right one. The English officers, without any assistance from their
Turkish colleagues, who merely looked on when they were not keeping up
the supply of witnesses, had to effect the