When I visited the Armenian Church, the corpse of a child had just been laid out.  It was in a costly open bier, covered with red velvet and richly ornamented with gold lace.  The corpse was strewed over with flowers, decorated with a crown, and covered with fine white gauze.  The priests, in sumptuous robes, conducted the funeral ceremonies, which were very similar to the Catholic.  The poor mother, at whose side I accidentally happened to kneel, sobbed loudly when preparations were made to carry away the dear remains.  I also could not restrain my tears:  I wept not for the death of the child, but for the deep grief of the afflicted parent.

Leaving this place of mourning, I visited some Greek and Armenian families.  I was received in spacious rooms, which were fitted up in the most simple manner.  Along the walls stood painted wooden benches partly covered with rugs.  On these benches the people sit, eat, and sleep.  The women wear Grecian dresses.

European and Asiatic costumes are seen so frequently together in the streets, that neither the one nor the other appears peculiar.  The greatest novelty to me, in this respect, was the Circassian dress.  It consists of wide trousers, short coats full of folds, with narrow sashes, and breast pockets for from six to ten cartridges; tight half-boots, with points turned inwards, and close-fitting fur caps.  The more wealthy wore coats of fine dark-blue cloth, and the edges were ornamented with silver.

The Circassians are distinguished from all other Caucasian people by their beauty.  The men are tall, have very regular features and great ease in their motions.  The women are of a more delicate build; their skin is whiter, their hair dark, their features regular, their figures slender, with their busts well developed:  in the Turkish harems they are considered the greatest beauties.  I must confess, however, that I have seen many handsomer women in the Persian harems than in the Turkish, even when they contained Circassians.

The Asiatic women, when in the streets here, wrap themselves in large white mantles; many cover the mouth as well, and some few the remainder of the face.

Of the domestic life of the Russian officials and officers I cannot say much.  I had, indeed, a letter to the chancellor director, Herr von Lille, and to the governor, Herr von Jermaloff; but both gentlemen were not much pleased with me—­my free expression of opinion, perhaps, did not suit them.  I made no scruple of speaking my mind with regard to the ill-regulated posting establishments, and the miserable roads.  I, moreover, related my imprisonment, with a few comments; and, what crowned all, I said that I had intended to have gone on from here across the Caucasus to Moscow and Petersburgh, but that I had been completely deterred from doing so by my short experience of travelling in the country, and would take the shortest road to get beyond the frontier as soon as possible.  If I had been a man and had spoken so, I should probably have been treated with a temporary residence in Siberia.