him to appoint some one to conduct me through his dominions.  This he was pleased to promise, as likewise to give me a free passport, without paying any duties, as I carried no merchandize.  Accordingly, I took my leave of the king on the 14th of July, returning to the tree I formerly mentioned as my lodging, where the secretary brought me the promised passport and a guide.  I then returned to my people at the village where they were kept in my absence, and was received with much joy, as the priest had represented the king as the cruellest tyrant in the world.  My people could not contain themselves for excess of joy at my safe return, and even the miserable priest was so touched at the scene, that he provided us with something to eat, and we slept there that night as well as we could.

Next day, being the 15th of July, we provided ourselves with some bread and wine, to comfort ourselves on the way, and resumed our journey through thick forests and terrible mountains, which continued for two days.  In the evening of the 16th, we stopt near a spring, where we remained during the night in the open air, being obliged to light a fire on account of the coldness of the weather, though in the middle of summer.  On the 17th of the same month we arrived at Goride[6], which belongs to the king of Georgia.  This city is built on a plain, watered by a large river, and is defended by a citadel which is built upon a rock.  Our guide notified our arrival to the commandant, who ordered us a house for our lodgings, apparently for the purpose of extorting a present; for shortly afterwards he informed me that he had letters from the king, by which he was ordered to receive twenty-six ducats from me for himself, and that I should pay six to my guide.  I endeavoured to evade this demand, by saying that the king had received me favourably, to whom I had already given seventy ducats, and could not give any thing more, and urged my free passport.  But he would listen to nothing I could urge, and I was forced to comply with his extortion.  He even detained me till the 19th of the month, and even then I had extreme difficulty to get leave to depart.  The inhabitants of the city, who deserve rather to be ranked among beasts, looked at us with as much astonishment as if they had never seen any other men than ourselves.  They told us that, on the top of a high mountain in a neighbouring forest, there was a great church, in which was an image of the Virgin, which worked many miracles, and that the church was served by forty monks, whom they named Calojeriens[7].  But our anxiety to get out of this abominable country, prevented us from paying our devotions at that famous church.  Georgia, indeed, is a somewhat better country than Mingrelia, but the manners of the people and their way of living is equally brutal; and such were the distresses and difficulties I encountered in travelling through both, that it would be tedious to relate them.  On the 20th of July we left the abominable city of Goride, where we had suffered so many vexations, and continued, our journey through forests and over mountains, occasionally falling in with villages where we purchased provisions.  We had always to pass the nights on the ground near some spring or rivulet, during most part of our journey through Mingrelia and Georgia.