line, and the other, flanking the Persian side, more broken and intermittent. The Caucasus had a very different appearance from what it had borne before. It was brown, bare, and treeless; the cones were no longer green, but seemed to reflect the sun with a silvery lustre. A person inexperienced to mountains would have calculated the distance of the ridge from the railway at ten or fifteen miles. In reality, it was between sixty and seventy. One of the cones we had just passed was the Kamatzna Dagh, 11,445 feet high, and in front was the Bazar Douz, rearing its head above the level of ocean 14,722 feet.

Mount Ararat, which lies a few days south of Tiflis, is only a little more than two thousand feet higher than this. Travelling in our carriage was a young Armenian engineer, who was reading a recently published Armenian book upon Mount Ararat. The cause of its issue had been the publication of a work at St. Petersburg by a Russian professor, describing his partial ascent of the mountain. The Armenian book, written by one of the Armenian monks on the spot, denied the truthfulness of the professor's statements, and asserted that no one had ever placed his foot on the summit. This, by the way, the Armenians have repeatedly asserted since Parrot first effected the ascent in 1829. Since then Aftronomoff, Behrens, Abich, Seymour, Tchodsko, Khanyloff, Stuart, C. C. Tucker, and Bryce have either stood on the actual summit, or at a height within a few feet of it. Still, prejudice is hard to kill, and the Armenians having made up their minds that the mountain has never been ascended since the time of Noah, and that its summit will never be attained by mortal man to the end of time, are ready to argue the matter against all comers in the face of the clearest evidence to the contrary.

BREAKFAST ON A WATER MELON.

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The Armenian was a very intelligent fellow. He was being trained at Moscow by the Government as a railway engineer, and was gaining experience during the vacation by travelling with a free pass over the Caucasian railroads. Some day, when these railroads push their way into Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkey, the Government will possess in the person of this Armenian and others of the same nationality, skilled engineers capable of making all the arrangements with the natives of the districts through which the lines will pass.

Had we been up early we should have been able to have breakfasted at Elisavetopol Station, where the train stops for twenty minutes at an excellent buffet. As it was, we were only able to get a glass of tea and a stale roll at one of the small stations. This, however, was better than nothing, considering the sultriness of the morning, and when we followed it at the next station with a capital wash and brush up in the solitary waiting-room, and then in the roomy carriage attacked with our pen-knives a huge water melon, weighing eight or ten pounds, and bought for a penny, I was quite ready to admit the force of C.'s remark-could luxurious travelling be carried to further lengths in the East? Throughout the Kura Valley I do not know any fruit that surpasses the water melon. Grapes which can be bought for almost nothing with their delicate bloom on in the humid valley of the Rion, too often reach the traveller in the dusty valley of the Kura gritty and flyblown. It is unpleasant also to eat grapes after they have been packed in dirty baskets and handled by dirty Asiatics. But the dust and the fly cannot get at the water melon; its tough skin is proof against bruises and dirt, and it retains its freshness long after the pear and the apricot have become stale and rotten. Gently removing the top, we helped ourselves to thick horizontal

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slices, and I think the friends of C. and myself would have been amused if they had seen us afterwards, sleeves turned up, holding the slices with both hands out of the window and taking huge bites at the pulp, while the juice descended in showers on the dusty earth below. When we had eaten of it till we could eat no more, we replaced the top and stowed the melon away in a cool corner of the carriage, whither we resorted whenever we felt thirsty-it being impossible closer to Baku to get water melons at the stations. At Baku itself they are again abundant, being brought by barge-loads from the Volga. Throughout the whole of South Russia water melons are wonderfully abundant. Generally speaking, they may be bought for 1d. or 2d. apiece, although they cost 6d. to 1s. 6d. at Moscow and St. Petersburg, and I have often seen half-a-crown demanded at Covent Garden. In some parts of South Russia, as, for instance, in the province of Tamboff, where I lived six months among the peasants some years ago, the water melon is used as an alternative crop-wheat being sown the first year, millet or buckwheat the next, and water-melons or cucumbers the third. In the Caucasus they are commonly grown amidst the maize. The people of South Russia practically live on bread and melons during the summer, and this is the case all the way to Merv. At the close of the season they are salted in tubs for winter eating. The water melon is essentially a fruit for a hot climate. On a hot day it is simply delicious. But it never seems to me palatable in cold, dull weather, even in Asia, and I always avoid it in England, where it is not only out of place in our chilly climate, but never possesses the juiciness and flavour of the water melon of the East. As a rule, the hotter the climate the better the water melon. It attains its largest size, I believe, at Merv, the Turcomans having been accus