. The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across desert, a region of considerable fertility is reached. The streamsflowing down from the mountains are utilized for purposes of irrigation,but very rudely; under a careful system of cultivation the valley of theKura Biver, which the railway follows to Tiflis, could support a large pop-ulation. From Baku to Tiflis by railway is a distance of three hundred andforty-one miles, and the line is said to have cost, including rolling stock,about fif
. The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across desert, a region of considerable fertility is reached. The streamsflowing down from the mountains are utilized for purposes of irrigation,but very rudely; under a careful system of cultivation the valley of theKura Biver, which the railway follows to Tiflis, could support a large pop-ulation. From Baku to Tiflis by railway is a distance of three hundred andforty-one miles, and the line is said to have cost, including rolling stock,about fifty thousand dollars a mile. In the work on the desert portionmany of the laborers died from the effects of the extreme dryness of theatmosphere. The whole distance from Baku to Batoum, on the BlackSea, is five hundred and sixty-one miles. ARRIVAL AT TIFLIS. 481 Tiflis is thirteen liiindred and fifty feet above the level of the sea, andthe point where the railway reaches its greatest elevation is eighteen hun-dred feet higher, or thirty-two hundred feet in all. The grades are verysteep; there is one stretch of eight miles where it is two hundred and. LOOKING DOWN ON THE STEPPE. forty feet to the mile, and for a considerable distance it exceeds one hun-dred feet to the mile. It is proposed to overcome the steepest grade by along tunnel which would reduce the highest elevation to little more thantwo thousand feet. Our friends reached Tiflis in the evening, after an interesting ride, inspite of the monotony of the desert portion of the route. Frank will tellus the story of tlieir visit to the famous city of the Caucasus. We were somewhat disappointed, said he, with our first view ofTiflis. We had an impression that it was in the centre of a fertile plain 31 482 THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. surrounded by mountains; actually the ground on wliieli it stands is notfertile, and the surroundings consist of l)rown hills instead of sides of the hills are barren,
Size: 1576px × 1586px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorknoxthomaswallace1835, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880
