_Leaving Phasis, Contarini travels through Mingrelia and Georgia, into
Media, and, passing the Caspian, arrives in Tartary._
Leaving Phasis, as before mentioned, on the 17th of September; and taking
the road of Mingrelia, we came to _Cotati_, or Cutais, on the 21st of
that month, extremely worn out through the consequences of our late
illness, and the fatigues of the journey; and as the Greek whom I had
hired never ceased to give me vexation, I here parted with him as
handsomely as I could. We remained two days at Cutais, among people who
knew us not, and whose language we were quite ignorant of. Leaving that
place, and tracing back our former steps, we passed over several
mountains in much fear, and arrived at Tiflis on the 30th of September,
where we took shelter in the chapel of a certain Armenian catholic, who
had more the appearance of a dead person than of a living man, but who
rendered us every possible service. This man had a son who lived with him,
and who, unfortunately for us, was seized with the plague, which had
raged in that part of the country this year. From him one of my servants,
named Maffeo of Bergamo, caught the distemper, who still kept about me
during two days, though ill, as he was my own particular domestic. At
length, growing worse, he had to take to his bed, when the distemper
shewed itself; and as he lay in the same room with me, and the house
could not afford me another, I was forced to take refuge in a hovel where
some cows were kept at night; and as the Armenian refused to allow Maffeo
to remain in his house, I was constrained to take him into the same place
with myself, where Stephen took care of him, till God pleased to take him
out of the world.
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