Note 6 — Chapter IV · TO AKHALKALAKI
Reading edition
Dubois (op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 298, 299) informs us that the Mussulmans of these districts are the old Georgian inhabitants whom Safar Pasha compelled to embrace Islam in 1625. He adds that the Armenians escaped this persecution, having been accorded by the reigning Sultan liberty of conscience, like the Jews in France under similar conditions.
The river Kur is essentially a Georgian river, even where it traverses districts which belong geographically to the Armenian tableland. For the history and character of the country about its upper course one may usefully consult the works of Dubois and Brosset already cited in this chapter, and Koch’s Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846. ↑