ABSTRACT
ANYTHING more wonderful than the change from winter to summer on the Caucasian mountain slopes could not easily be imagined. In April the plains were deep in snow, and in May, when English woods were leafing, every tree and bush looked stark and bare. Only by an occasional sallow in bloom one knew that the winter was over. The snowdrops and blue-bells sprang up in winter's traces, and then verdure danced out and clothed valley and slope up even to the summit of some low hills. The English spring, as I imagined it, was months ahead, but dawdled on among the cold winds; this hot summer overtook it at a bound and rushed on to its later glories, to the blossoming and fruiting of vine and pomegranate.
