I examined, with curiosity, this enormous wall, fortified by numerous towers at short distance; and I wondered at the grandeur of the ancients, exhibited even in their unreasonable caprices of despotism—­that greatness to which the effeminate rulers of the East cannot aspire, in our day, even in imagination.  The wonders of Babylon, the lake of Moeris, the pyramids of the Pharaohs, the endless wall of China, and this huge bulwark, built in sterile places, on the summits of mountains, through the abyss of ravines—­bear witness to the gigantic iron will, and the unlimited power, of the ancient kings.  Neither time, nor earthquake, nor man, transitory man, nor the footstep of thousands of years, have entirely destroyed, entirely trodden down, the remains of immemorial antiquity.  These places awake in me solemn and sacred thoughts.  I wandered over the traces of Peter the Great; I pictured him the founder, the reformer, of a young state—­building it on these ruins of the decaying monarchies of Asia, from the centre of which he tore out Russia, and with a mighty hand rolled her into Europe.  What a fire must have gleamed in his eagle eye, as he glanced from the heights of Caucasus!  What sublime thoughts, what holy aspirations, must have swelled that heroic breast!  The grand destiny of his country was disclosed before his eyes; in the horizon, in the mirror of the Caspian, appeared to him the picture of Russia’s future weal, sown by him, and watered by his red sweat.  It was not empty conquest that was his aim, but victory over barbarism—­the happiness of mankind.  Derbend, Baka, Astrabad, they are the links of the chain with which he endeavoured to bind the Caucasus, and rivet the commerce of India with Russia.

Demigod of the North!  Thou whom nature created at once to flatter the pride of man, and to reduce it to despair by thine unapproachable greatness!  Thy shade rose before me, bright and colossal, and the cataract of ages fell foaming at thy feet!  Pensive and silent, I rode on.

The wall of the Caucasus is faced on the north side with squared stones, neatly and firmly fixed together with lime.  Many of the battlements are still entire; but feeble seeds, falling into the crevices and joints, have burst them asunder with the roots of trees growing from them, and, assisted by the rains, have thrown the stones to the earth, and over the ruins triumphantly creep mallows and pomegranates; the eagle, unmolested, builds her nest in the turret once crowded with warriors, and on the cold hearthstone lie the fresh bones of the wild-goat, dragged thither by the jackals.  Sometimes the line of the ruins entirely disappeared; then fragments of the stones again rose from among the grass and underwood.  Riding in this way, a distance of about three versts, we reached the gate, and passed through to the south side, under a vaulted arch, lined with moss and overgrown with shrubs.  We had not advanced twenty paces, when suddenly, behind an enormous tower, we came upon