Note 11 — Chapter IV · TO AKHALKALAKI

Opposite us, on the left bank, the bold outline of the fish-backed ridge is crowned with the ruinous remains of masonry, barely distinguished from the rock. A long line of crumbling edifices marks the site of a considerable fortress; in the depths beneath, at the foot of the perpendicular mountain, a wall descends the last slope to the margin of the water and cuts off access to the valley from the river-bed. A few miserable huts are seen in the hollow: who could inhabit such a weird and lonely spot? Kurds, they say, as though they were no human beings—a lingering remnant of Turkish times. The ruins are the relics of Zeda Tmogvi, a stronghold famous in the history of these lands.11