CHAPTER I.
CLAUDIUS BOMBARNAC, _Special Correspondent_, "_Twentieth Century._" _Tiflis, Transcaucasia._ Such is the address of the telegram I found on the 13th of May when I arrived at Tiflis.
This is what the telegram said: "As the matters in hand will terminate on the 15th instant Claudius Bombarnac will repair to Uzun Ada, a port on the east coast of the Caspian.

There he will take the train by the direct Grand Transasiatic between the European frontier and the capital of the Celestial Empire.
He will transmit his impressions in the way of news, interviewing remarkable people on the road, and report the most trivial incidents by letter or telegram as necessity dictates.

The _Twentieth Century_ trusts to the zeal, intelligence, activity and tact of its correspondent, who can draw on its bankers to any extent he may deem necessary." It was the very morning I had arrived at Tiflis with the intention of spending three weeks there in a visit to the Georgian provinces for the benefit of my newspaper, and also, I hoped, for that of its readers.
Here was the unexpected, indeed; the uncertainty of a special correspondent's life.
At this time the Russian railways had been connected with the line between Poti, Tiflis and Baku.

After a long and increasing run through the Southern Russian provinces I had crossed the Caucasus, and imagined I was to have a little rest in the capital of Transcaucasia.

And here was the imperious administration of the _Twentieth Century_ giving me only half a day's halt in this town! I had hardly arrived before I was obliged to be off again without unstrapping my portmanteau! But what would you have?
We must bow to the exigencies of special correspondence and the modern interview! But all the same I had been carefully studying this Transcaucasian district, and was well provided with geographic and ethnologic memoranda.