Friday 15 May 1840
6 1/4 to 7 28/60 Kuraktchaiskii Redu to Kurulutchaiskii 20
the ferry over the Kour 13 versts from Post Tchemaklinskii
7 55/60 to 11 20/60 Kurulutchaiskii to Post Tchemaklinskii 33 1/7
11 53/60 to 1 20/60 Post Tchemaklinskii to Aranskii 18
1 35/60 to 3 12/60 Aranskii to Turiantchaiskoi 17
4 3/4 to 6 1/4 Turiantchaiskoi to Goktchaiskoi 21
6 3/4 to 8 50/60 Goktchaiskoi to Karamariamskoi 17
145 1/7
Reaumur 14 1/2 at 3 a.m. could not sleep for heat and fleas - these arched earth-covered rooms very close - 2 little windows about 24 x 18 inches pierce 2 or 3 feet thick walls (ours a corner room) - should guess the room about 5 x 4 yards and perhaps about 4 yards high to the crown of the arch - I could not live comfortably in the Eastern souterrain houses - too cellar-like
Caravanserai court 50 x 60 yards the latter and longer the entrance side - must have been handsome in its day - now a heap of ruins inside - all the rooms but 6 or 7 roofless and more or less filled with rubbish - probably about 50 rooms - the town very picturesque - surrounded by ruins extending to a considerable distance - on the river Ganja - wood bridge over it
Mountains become hills (left) at Elizabethpol, and (right) (going towards Baku) seem to leave us now at 6 a.m. and the eye wanders up the endless plain to the right - charming drive over the plain wide open valley the snow mountains still fine (right) to here Kuraktchaiskii Redu - station house at Kuraktchaiskii the same sort of station house as ever since Tiflis
Charming drive - woody - mulberry some oak and elm - and shrubby, grenadier myrtle? and tamarisk in flower beautiful little pink flowers in bunches in grappes - something in the style of the lilack flower bunches
5 hares ran across us - plenty of game here - excellent narrow hard sand road
Rain in the night laid the dust for us - we near the hills over the Kour - very fine - broken and picturesque
Beautiful day - sun warmer from before 7 a.m. Road more interesting from Astapha the river - the station house there - and still more so from Elizabethpol - abundance of sheep and cattle - oxen yesterday also loaded like horses - almost all (or all?) the sheep with the fat tails, like a large 2 or 3 inch thick flap covering the whole buttocks with a little tail turned up in the middle and this and the inside part of the flap often a little turned and exposed to view, naked, looking queer and not very nice
The station house on an eminence - magnificent aspens in the hollow there down to the little stream, and small leafed willows and wild vines, and mulberry trees and snow mountains right (i.e. South - i.e. right as one goes to Baku) charming - the Kurtchai river in sight at the foot of the fine range of hills - the Kour, they say, on the other side of this range separated by, as it were, a tongue of land from the range of hill or mountain seen beyond it from here
At 8 35/60 cross the picturesque little Thchura, a little winding stream hid among sand rock banks and shrubs - at 9 25/60 close under the white broken picturesque indurated sand mountains and at 9 1/2 at the ferry of the Kour, the rapid muddy Kour, broad as the Thames at Richmond? 2 rades-raft or broad platform fixed on 3 tree-boats - one raft for the carriage and another for the 9 horses (our own five, and the Cossacks' four) and 3 single tree-boats but we preferred going with the carriage and sat outside on the servants seat for the sake of the fine view up and down the river - embarked in 10 minutes at 9 3/4 Kept close under the highish sand bank covered with willow bushes &c. very picturesque for 7 1/2 minutes before we attempted to cross then crossed in 7 minutes more (over in 14 minutes at 9 59/60) the current having carried us almost twice as far down as we had gone up?
so that we made some such track as from a to b and then from b to c the horses crossed in the same way a little lower down the river
We landed 1st. and as we stood looking at them the Raft seemed almost as if running away with the current rather than coming to land about a hundred yards lower down than ourselves - 3 men and our Cossack with a little short oar (or as it were long shafted spade) paddled or worked against the stream between our tree boats and one at our outside and this was all the force we had
The sand-rock mountains everywhere sillonnées accidentées, - ridgy and hillocky - very striking and picturesque - white and arid - merely sprinkled with little tufts of some sort of grass? or what?
Left bank of river, as it sweeps from the mountains, wooded - all the wood today in full foliage - beautiful wooded banks down the river and upwards - sandrock mountains and a fringe of wood on right bank - pretty scene
3 tree-boats with 2 men each scattered on the river below us - large group of cattle at our landing place and the queer camel-gaited elephant-skinned cattle lying down in the river near the edge with their faces resting on the water all the rest covered except perhaps a bit of the back
On landing we were 13 versts from the station and therefore 37 1/7 - 13 = 20 1/7 versts from our last station Kurulutchaiskii - Began to embark at 8 35/60 to 9 3/4 - over at 9 59/60 of again at 10 25/60 therefore the ferry had taken us - had delayed us 50 minutes
New sort of station house at Post Tchemaklinskii - more picturesque and cottage-like - 2 little gable-ended porches - very small windows - very neat and pretty - nicest station house since Tiflis, - nice carpeted room à l' orientale, and on the opposite side the court, the neat gable-end-porched Cossack barrack - should have liked to sleep here
At 12 20/60 in 2 minutes pass the Aranskii river pronounced Arceski - beautiful day - fine air - the plain prettily shrubbed with Zugube? and another winged leafed shrub the wood of which smells agreeably enough on being broken
No horses - off with same at 1 35/60 - at 1 3/4 meet return horses and change 3 of ours and 1 of our drivers, and off again in 18 minutes! at 2 3/60 - at 3 8/60 Toorhan-river broad stony bed, 5 or 6 streams - at the station at 3 12/60 - good grass the last 2 stages all along - ray grass? or very like it and other grasses by dint of irrigation - the station house here Turiantchaisko, faces the fine mountain glen, or small valley of the Toorhan (Turian river) 20 versts from the Lesghiens - they came down 2 years ago, and burnt the house and assassinated all the people at the station - no sentinel there and peu de monde - now a sentinel every night and 8 Cossacks and 8 Tatars stationed here - the present house new and not quite in the old situation but rather lower down - saw one or 2 partly burnt beams lying about
The station houses on the other side the Kura (Kour) built 10 years ago - tho on this side the Kour only built 3 years ago - from this station to the next and next after the most dangerous - having to wait, went into the neat house - 1/2 hour at writing out accounts - from here we have double escort 4 Cossacks and 4 Tartars
Sand mountains near left - Plain as far as one can see right - some hills (left) nice, sweet, short grass pasture as in England - steppe à parte de vue right
At Goktchaiskoi at 6 1/4 - Left, the picturesque, ridgy, hillocky furrowed, water-worn, white, calcareous, sandrock hills - not good sheeping here - taken with a sort of Lock wooden bolt - order one to be made (by the joiner there) and ready by Thursday or Friday night
Off again at 6 3/4 - at 6 55/60 at river of same name as the station, that must be Goktchai (Tchai = river in Tartar) - cross the broad shallow streamy river - obliged to choose our way and go round about a little to get out of the streams and more easily (the horses along this road from Tiflis never what we should call true drawn) and it was 22 minutes before we got clear of the river, streams and rough bed
At Karamiranskoi at 8 50/60 - tea at 9 50/60 in 3/4 hour then as the two last nights did big and little job out of doors
Very fine day Fahrenheit 68 1/2 and Reaumur 16 1/4 now at 11 p.m. beautiful moonlight night - lay down at 12.
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