No sooner did Aga Mahomed Khan find himself absolute master of the Persian empire than he set about the task of re-establishing the relations which had formerly subsisted between the Czars of Georgia and the Shahs of Persia. When the latter were sufficiently powerful, they had always exacted tribute from the former: Abbass the Great received this contribution punctually during the whole of his reign. It consists of a certain number of children of both sexes, who became household slaves.^[1] During the long period that Persia was torn to pieces by domestic wars after the death of Nadir, the sovereign of Georgia was not called upon to acknowledge the suzerainty of any of the chiefs of his Mahomedan neighbours; but, in the meantime, the countries lying between the Caucasus and Persia were fast falling under the ascendancy of another government, whose grasp they found it impossible to shake off. As the rise and spread of the Russian power in Georgia has exercised a permanent