Note 5 — Chapter IV · TO AKHALKALAKI

If reliance can be placed on the figure given by Dubois, the population of Khertvis has almost doubled since 1833.5 However this may be, the township is now in full decline; misery was written in the faces of a great part of the inhabitants, of whom many were preparing to leave Russian soil. As we passed through the streets, between the tumble-down houses, we observed that some of the shops had been permanently closed. Is it their unfitness to flourish under systematic government? Or the policy of the Russian Government to discourage Mussulmans, with their Turkish sympathies, or some special causes which we were unable to ascertain? Our stay was too short to sift fact from fable; and a rigid reticence was observed by the leading people, who were evidently under the influence of fear.6