TEFLIS, or Tiflis, a city of Asia, and capital of the kingdom of Georgia, situated on the precipitous banks of the Kur, at the foot of a line of dark and barren hills, which overshadow the town, and impart to it a gloomy appearance. This city was visited by Sir R. K. Porter in 1817, and from his work the following account is chiefly compiled. Teflis has no claim to a very high antiquity, having been founded in 1063 by the czar Liewang, who was attracted to the spot by certain warm springs in the neighbourhood, from which he expected to derive benefit. Before that period it could boast of no habitation in the form of a house, with the exception of a few mud hovels for the convenience of the occupiers of a small fortress which stood on an adjacent height, and protected the valley, and of which the remains are still to be seen on a hill to the south of the town, at some distance from the station of the more modern citadel, which is of Turkish origin. The road along the western bank of the Kur was completely commanded by this old work of the native czars; and its dark and frowning towers still seem to threaten the passenger below. The first aspect of the town appeared to Sir R. K. Porter peculiarly gloomy; and though these impressions were in some degree lessened by greater familiarity, the effect of the surrounding scenery always remained the same; and the town seemed to be enclosed in a vast prison of high and beetling rocks, broken into deep clefts, black and bare, and projecting into a thousand rugged and savage forms. So confined an abode is far from being desirable; and hence the governor-general has chosen his place of residence at a short distance from the body of the city, on the gentle slope of a hill fronting the river, with a fine view of the Caucasus Mountains. This building, with the arsenal, the hospital, churches, and a few villas in the neighbourhood, is all that bears any resemblance to the architecture of Europe. The rest is purely Asiatic, in the most unfavourable sense of the term, being a collection of low, flat-roofed dwellings, built of dun brick, mingled with stones and mud; the doors and windows exceedingly small; the latter covered with paper instead of glass. The streets are all narrow, and covered with deep mud or dust, according [7:21:135]as the weather is wet or dry. The Russian governor has ' begun to remedy this defect by ordering them to be paved.

He has also introduced other improvements, by directing old and ruinous houses to be pulled down, and others more handsome and spacious to be erected in their stead. Among other improvements, the bazaar, or great market-place for merchants, has undergone important alterations. It has been totally roofed in, but with open circles left in the rafters for the admission of air and light. It is united with the square of the city guard by long colonnades, which place is also lined with shops, covered from the weather with a fine range of pillared arcades. The natives themselves begin to be sensible of these improvements, when they experience the comfort of shelter for themselves and their merchandise, from the injurious effects of rain or scorching heat. The bazaar is a narrow street, long and winding. It is lined on each side with shops of every description, such as those of fruiterers, grocers, barbers, cooks, mercers, saddlers, armourers, and various other traders, who all display their articles to the best advantage. Notwithstanding the value of the merchandise here exposed, the place is a free thoroughfare, not merely to pedestrians, but to horsemen, and asses with burdens, and even to droves of buffaloes. Hence it is often both disagreeable and dangerous to foot passengers, though it is still a bustling scene, full of people from morning till night. Not far from the bazaar is the public caravanserai, which is a circular building, three stories in height, with a sort of gallery running in front of each range of doors, from which stone-steps descend to conduct passengers above or below. Here the merchants take up their quarters; and here may be seen exposed on the stone or earthen floors of dark and vaulted apartments, whatever goods the merchants who inhabit them possess. The owner of each heap sits cross-legged, in grave attendance, waiting the appearance of customers, or bargaining with those who arrive. The centre of the court is filled with the horses and mules of the merchants in the caravanserai.

Teflis has been long famed for its hot baths, which possess valuable medicinal properties, and are frequented by both sexes for health as well as for luxury and amusement. These baths are situated at the extremity of the bazaar, where is a small bridge over a deep ravine, in which flows a mountain stream, pure and cold at its fountain head, but, mingling with the hot springs, which take their rise in the adjacent heights, it becomes warm. It is over this steaming flood that the baths are erected. On one side of the bridge stand those appropriated to the men, and on the other, immediately under the gloomy walks of the citadel, those allotted to the women. The water which supplies these baths is strongly impregnated with sulphur, having the usual offensive smell of such springs. Its heat may be reckoned at from 15 to 36 degrees of Reaumur in the several basins; and at the source the heat is 42 degrees. The basins are excavated in the solid rock, over whose surface the water had originally flowed; and these are divided, under one immense vaulted roof, into different apartments, from which the day-light is entirely excluded, and where total darkness is only dispelled by the faint glimmering of a few lamps twinkling amid the vapours from the steam. These baths are open to all ranks indiscriminately, and are in a state of the greatest disorder and filth. There is not a place where a bather could lay down his clothes without having them drenched in wet, and dirtied. In journeying farther into the interior of these boiling caverns, Sir R. K. Porter found an accumulation of every thing that can disgust the senses. All sorts of people were huddled together, scrubbing, scraping, rubbing, shaving, &c.; these offices being done in each case by the companions of the bather, or by the persons of the bath in attendance. He also visited the baths appropriated to the females, into which he was admitted without the least scruple.

The citadel is situated on the summit of a very high promontory, which forms the termination of the mountain that overshadows the town on its south-western side. This fortress was erected in 1576, when the Turks took possession of Georgia, to overawe the conquered province. About two centuries afterwards it was dismantled by the Persians when they overran the country, and was left gradually to decay. It exhibits a mass of ruins, which however are still grand and imposing; and the situation in which they are placed increases the wildness and majesty of these eastern towers. Within the old battlements may still be seen the remains of the mosque mentioned by Chardin, and which is now used as a prison for malefactors, under an officer and guard. Besides this fortress, the Turks, for greater security, enclosed the town on every side with a range of towers and walls; but these ancient bulwarks, like the citadel itself, are now, with the exception of the wall facing the river, nearly levelled with the ground. There are several fine churches in Teflis, of different Christian persuasions. That which is dedicated to the Catholic mode of worship is the most beautiful. The great Armenian church, the cathedral of Holy Zion, is more extensive, but is not equal to the other either in richness or grace of architecture; yet its more advantageous situation adding the majesty of nature to the holy sanctity of the place, seems fully to bear out the propriety of its appellation. The noble waters of the Kur roll past its base, increasing in rapidity and sound as they pour onward through the bold cliffs, which, narrowing, contract the rapid stream. Here a bridge of a single arch connects the town with a considerable suburb called Avlabar. It is chiefly inhabited by a colony of Armenians who fled from the neighbourhood of Erivan during the late wars between Russia and Persia. Here are also the ruins of an ancient fort, church, and houses; and about two miles farther from this side of the city stand the remains of another sacred and ancient edifice, on the summit of a hill so high that it commands the most extensive view in the vicinity of Teflis; embracing on one side the city, with its citadel, churches, and gardens; on the other, to the north, the windings of the Kur through the varied shores of the valley and the plain; with the whole chain of mountains from the province of Kahetia to Kasi-beck, and their tremendous summits, pile above pile as far as the eye can reach to the north-west, the snowy summit of Elborus towering in the distance to the height, according to the calculation of a Russian officer, of 16,700 feet above the level of the sea.

From their intercourse with the Russians, the higher classes of the inhabitants have gradually lost much of their Asiatic manners; and such changes not being well understood by those who adopt them, are not in many cases favourable to the improvement of the people. In this case the Asiatics, set free from the restraints imposed by their own manners, have not adopted those of Europe; and have thus become more licentious than before. The women, having broken through the restraint that concealed their faces from all but their husbands, have also thrown off other restraints. They were at first extremely offended and disgusted when the Russian troops were quartered in their houses, and when they were first obliged to appear before them; but custom at last rendering them familiar to this intercourse, a great change has, within the last twenty years, been effected in the conduct of the female Georgians. Among the lower classes this effect of foreign intercourse has been even more decided. When they go abroad, they still retain the chadre, or veil, in which they are enveloped from head to foot; but when they are seen standing at their doors without this safeguard, they, from old custom, retreat hastily into the house from the gaze of strangers. They have been long celebrated for their beauty, having fine large dark eyes, regular features, and a pleasing and mild expression of countenance. Before its capture in 1757 by Aga Mahommed[7:21:136] Khan, it contained 4000 houses, and 22,000 inhabitants. The population does not now exceed 15,000, though it is on the increase since the country came into the possession of the Russians, whose vigorous government gives protection to life and property. It is well situated for an entrepôt of trade; and Fraser mentions that it is fast rising from the ruinous condition in which the Russians received it, to be a thriving commercial place. The government gives every encouragement to industry: the port is declared free to all goods upon payment of an ad valorem duty of five per cent. at the Russian custom-house; and no internal duties are levied at toll-houses within their dominions. The distance from Redoubt Kaleh, on the Black Sea, to Teflis, is 230 miles. The Russian authorities are at present improving the road, and there are regular caravans from Teflis to Tabriz, which travel the journey in eighteen or twenty days, through a safe country. A trade has already commenced in such commodities as woollen cloths, cottons, plain and printed goods, hardware articles, silk and cotton manufactures of Lyon, embroideries, cloths, &c.; several cargoes of European goods having already reached Teflis from the Black Sea, and been sold with a large profit. This trade, it is probable, will gradually increase under the patronage of the Russian government, and hence Teflis bids fair to become, like Odessa, a commercial mart for an extensive district. From Petersburg it is distant 1752 English miles. Long. 62. 40½. E. Lat. according to the observation of Captain Monteith of the Madras engineers, 4L 43. N.