What I am doing here, I propose to do again in a fortnight at Pekin.

But the pagodas and yamens of the Celestial Empire can wait awhile, here is Tiflis before my eyes; walls of the citadels, belfries of the temples belonging to the different religions, a metropolitan church with its double cross, houses of Russian, Persian, or Armenian construction; a few roofs, but many terraces; a few ornamental frontages, but many balconies and verandas; then two well-marked zones, the lower zone remaining Georgian, the higher zone, more modern, traversed by a long boulevard planted with fine trees, among which is seen the palace of Prince Bariatinsky, a capricious, unexpected marvel of irregularity, which the horizon borders with its grand frontier of mountains.
It is now five o'clock.

I have no time to deliver myself in a remunerative torrent of descriptive phrases.

Let us hurry off to the railway station.
There is a crowd of Armenians, Georgians, Mingrelians, Tartars, Kurds, Israelites, Russians, from the shores of the Caspian, some taking their tickets--Oh! the Oriental color--direct for Baku, some for intermediate stations.
This time I was completely in order.

Neither the clerk with the gendarme's face, nor the gendarmes themselves could hinder my departure.
I take a ticket for Baku, first class.