Note 2 — Chapter IV · TO AKHALKALAKI

Be they immigrants or aboriginal, the character of their surroundings is in harmony with the instincts of their race. A vast and elevated plain upon which the snow lies in winter and a southern sun shines. A fertile volcanic soil, abounding in springs and favourable to cereals of every kind. Measured from north-east to south-west, the plain of Akhalkalaki has a length of nearly forty miles;2 its latitudinal extension may be gauged by the course of the Kur on the west, and, on the east, by that of the stream which issues from Lake Madatapa and skirts the outworks of the eastern meridional range. The plain is situated at an altitude which ranges between 5500 and 7000 feet. The soil, when exposed by the plough, is black in colour, or, perhaps, dark chocolate, and reveals the influence of the lavas below. The extreme evenness of the surface is due to the fluid nature of these lavas, which streamed, at a comparatively recent period, from fissures at the southern base of the Trialethian Mountains and from vents at other points of the mountain girdle which encircles the flat expanse. On the floor of the plain itself the effects of volcanic action are visible in the forms of hummock and rounded hill. Volcanic emissions have produced the lap-like enclosures which are the reservoirs of the lonely lakes. Their waters are fed by springs from beneath the surface, and by copious rains from the clouds of the Pontic region, which fly the topmost bulwarks of the tableland and distil on the western slopes of the meridional volcanic barrier, the limit on the east of the even ground. From Agrikar to Karakach is the section of this barrier along which this process of condensation is most pronounced; the mountains are known by the natives under the collective name of Mokri Gori, the wet mountains. The principal stream, besides the Kur, is that which issues from Lake Toporovan, and, descending south, flows through Lake Tuman. After emerging on the southern shore, it receives an affluent from Lake Madatapa, and pursues a northerly course. Where we arrived upon its margin, half an hour south of Akhalkalaki, it was a nice flash of water, flowing slowly over the surface of the plateau. Below the town it is joined on the left bank by a stream which has descended from the northern slopes of the Chaldir Hills; and further west, on the right bank, by the river of Samsar, which brings the drainage of the north-easterly arm of the plain and flows in a deeply eroded bed.3