There is a heavy duty payable on foreign saddles in Russia, and they are not one whit better, or indeed so well suited to the purpose, as those made in the Caucasus.
One hears a deal, in Europe, of the beauty of the Circassian and Georgian women.

Although I remained in Tiflis over a week, I did not see a single pretty woman among the natives.

As in every Russian town, however, the "Moushtaid," or "Bois de Boulogne" of Tiflis, was daily, the theatre nightly, crowded with pretty faces of the dark-eyed, oval-faced Russian type.

The new opera-house, a handsome building near the governor's palace, is not yet completed.
The Hotel de Londres was the favourite _rendezvous_ after the play.
Here till the small hours assembled nightly the _elite_ of European Tiflis.

Russian and Georgian officers in gorgeous uniforms of dark green, gold lace, and astrachan; French and German merchants with their wives and daughters; with a sprinkling _demi-mondaines_ from Odessa or Kharkoff, sipping tea or drinking kummel and "kaketi" at the little marble tables, and discussing the latest scandals.