Just before two o’clock our crew came back, their hair still wet from their swim in the Black Sea. And we wished we had been with them, for we were covered with sweat. It was very hot, and some of our passengers were beginning to feel the effect of an overindulgence in fresh fruit. A few children had been sick already.

We took off again and flew low over the sea, and then began to take on altitude, and climbed very high, and flew over mountains that were gaunt and brown, like the mountains of California. And deep in the creases there were little streams, and we could see the vegetation and the towns along the streams. The mountains were bleak here and forbidding, and they cast the light back blindingly. Then we flew through a pass, the mountaintops level with us, and came over the valley of Tiflis.

It is a huge and dry valley which looks like New Mexico. And when we landed the air was hot and dry, because it is far from the sea, but it was pleasant heat, there was no discomfort in it. And this great level valley, surrounded by the high mountains, seemed almost barren from the air.

We landed at a large airfield. There were many planes—Russian fighter planes. Two of them would take off as two came in, and they buzzed around the field constantly. Perhaps they were patrolling the Turkish border, which is not very far away.

On the high ridge to the west of us there was an ancient fortress, battlemented and huge, and black against the sky.

Mr. Chmarsky was with us again. We had declared a truce: we were nicer to him, and he was nicer to us, than we had been in Stalingrad. He had never been to Georgia either.

We were met by a delegation of the Tiflis section of Voks, and they had a fine big car, and they were nice people. We drove across the flat dry plain to a pass in the mountains. And in the pass lay Tiflis, a beautiful city which has been on the main route of travel from the south to the north for many centuries. The ranges on either side are lined with ancient fortifications, and even the city is dominated by a castle on the ridge. There is a fortress on the other side of the valley too, for through this narrow pass has come every movement and migration of people—Persians, Iranians, Iraqi from the south, and Tartars and other marauders from the north. And in this narrow pass the battles occurred and the fortifications were put up.

Part of the city is very old, and a river runs through the pass, with high cliffs on one side. And on the high cliffs are clustered ancient houses. It is truly an ancient city, for whereas Moscow celebrates this year its eight-hundredth anniversary, Tiflis next year will celebrate its fifteen-hundredth. And this is the new capital, the old capital is thirty kilometers farther along the river.