The New York herald., 1870-07-29

Great Ajax, Theseus and thirty five other princes.
| Those who have read Pindar and studied Strabo
| of course know the manner in which Jason per-
formed his mission, and the after history of the
brave adventures more startling than romance.
| Then why should recaptuate the stony to people
who already know it better than I do myself.
Nevertheless, consider ii how you may, regarded
the island of Ea-as | am pleased to call it until
| servants show me where it is-n the early morn
ing of that day the steamer glided up the Phasis
with myselfon board, with something Of the same
! reverence bestowed upon Mennn and his mate
as quilted rhebes for Phac.
THE HERALDs MISSION.
Three thousand one hundred and thirty-three
years ago! And the HERALD correspondent
called Hadji for short in this country, saw strata
of light mist and thick fog press heavily upon Ea,
envelope the mouth of the Phass and sink deep,
deep among the branches of the Mlngrelian
forest as he left Poti for Orper Though the morn.
ing was chilly 1 should have forgotten
it but for that mst-that floating sea of dense fog
for was busy with memories of college life, and
imagined myself as cast my eyes vacantly upon
Ea and Colchs forest and golden surface of the
Phasis, to be recitng my classical task to my
reverend teacher. Under the flower leaf there
|
so under the green leaves, thick as clouds of fo
age, with the spring cooring and their population
of warblers, there surfaced congerles of
reedy marshes, exhang the most sckly miasma
productive of tenacious ague, which will cling to
you despite the virtue of ever so much qun .quina
The road also is like lane of very thin mud, with
deep puddle holes in the middle of it, and in the
slime live a thousand thousand frogs, who seemed
| To Of tlo;r 4 III
| it, and whose harsh, monotonous notes came up
| to my ears with the force of tempest
We got at the end of the railroad after iour-
| ney Of eight miles. And these eight miles only of
railway completed has been tho work of nearly
two years! The engineers told me that the EN-.
bankment was finished all the way to Tinis, and
that the railroad would be across the Rion at Ku-
tais before September next. AS looked upon
| the sluggish movements of the natives, and the
all the same-to-me air of my English cousins, my
mind, bent upon seeking comparisons, traversed
the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Attain
tic Ocean, besides q good part of the American
Continent, to that trained and disciplined army of
workmen under Easement, working like one mind,
| with one hand, with one will upon the Pacific
| Railroad. Spade and pick, hammer and axe
| timed to the sonorous grind of the locomotive
| which ever rolled westward. Eight miles in two.
years in Mingrelia four and a half miles a
| day in America !
TO oRPERI.
| The steamer continued on her way to Orperi. I
| looked about with fresh eyes for the picturesque
for the novel, for all that was new. But there is
| not much to write about the low banks of the
Rion, the deep woods on either side, and damp
| foggy day. have seen the Saline river in Arkan-
| sas; the state of the weather, the straight, slm
young trees on the banks of the Rion, their juicy
green foliage the possibilities Of an attack Of ague
hanging in the perspective, whichever way l
tnrned my eyes about, reminded me Of that river.
| l heard chant, song, or hymn which was
both lively and monotone at one and the same
time, increasing with wonderful harmony to the
highest pitch Of crescendo, then suddenly subsd
ing to the minimum of diminuendo 1t was like
the song of the Swiss Alps at one time, at another
it was like the seguidila of the Andalusian The
| vocal music came from the boatmen of the Rion
who were floating down OR barge laden with dry
ash logs to Po,i, ultimately destined for Europe,
| where they would be converted into boys tops
shoemakers' lasts and wheel spokes.
| WHO you TRAVEL WITH.
| On board the narrow Ron steamer, among the
concourse of humanity, there were many chances
of observing number of new people The hand
| some Mingrelian youth, the gazelle-eyed and well
formed boy of Inertia, the countrymen of the
warrior-prophet Schamyl, the Lesgrans, noun.
| taineers from the far Eastern country of Doghes-
| tan, the Eunuch of the Skopt sect, the Russian
serf, struggling to assert an independent indvidu-
| atty among the crowd of naughty Georgans and
Crcassians; the sweet-faced women Of Gouriel,
| and arstocratic officers from st. Petersburg,
bound to their posts in the Caucasus; Cossacks,
Tartars and Armenians, besides Persians. Even
| in Constantinople, or in the cosmopolitan city of
| Alexandria, not more varied physiognomies, char.
acteristics and costumes were ever seen Assem-.
| bled within so small q compass. 10 was hetero-
| gently made Heterogeneous. OIt of the hun
dred passengers l am sure distinguished fifty
| nationalties. The costumes on board q
medley of all colors, as the tabard of herald.
The movement of the fifty different head-dresses
was like tuft of var-colored feathers blown into
| complication by strong wind. 1t riot of
| colors and a chaos Of shapes. There were more
costumes on board than there ever were
| within the wardrobes of Niblo's Jews shop
| in Whitechapel. There was the Tartars' woolly
| cap, like Hindostanee soup pot inverted, rim
| less, bulging out in the middle; there was the
| Armenian priests, like an American army coffee
pot minus its handle and lid; there was The Cos
sacks hairy head-dress black the ace of spades
rising upon the soldiers head like Turkish
watchtower above the mountains; there was the
Persian, tall as the length of stove pipe, and
black and smooth as when it is blackleaded and
polished; there was the Dayhestan hat, rivallng
the Persian in height, but much more terrible to
| look at, just as much as the broad beamed man
oi-war, with tiers of gun nozzes peeping out from
| her sides is more awful than the elegant slim
! fruiter Of New York Boston; there was the
| Georgian hat, like the leaWing tower of
| Pisa, but black and smooth as velvet,
| because it was Of lambs fleece; there was
the towering hat of Mingrea, which was an at
tempt at an Improvement upon the Georgian, to
relieve it of its sombre hue by making the crown
| of red cloth. There were many other hats there;
hats OF all sorts, except the hat of Fortunatus,
| which no could claim so near as l. for by good
| fortune alone / board to witness these
novelties. will not attempt to describe the cos
| tunes for they were more diverse than the hats
| hp n TO Ionp IN fbo Hnv
ing pants Of Persia and Turkey. But these people
OF the Caucasus are as fond of play OF colors as
| our black-sknned sisters down South, and with
their handsome noble faces peeping above their
cunniug embroidery and rich clothes no one can
object to their tastes Every man on board, how
ever, was uniform in his choice of arms, for to