There was to be a gradual emancipation of the serfs, and misery of all sorts to be lifted from the land by a new and benign system of government which should be representative and constitutional.

Many changes were at once instituted.

The old system of "colleges," or departments, established by Peter the Great was removed and a group of ministers after the European custom constituted the Tsar's official household, or what would once have been called his _Drujina_.

In the very first year of this reign there began an accession of territory in Asia, which gravitated as if by natural law toward the huge mass.

The picturesque old kingdom of Georgia, lying south of the Caucasus between the Black and Caspian seas, was the home of that fair and gifted race which, fallen from its high estate, had become the victim of the Turks, and, with its congener Circassia, had long provided the harems of the Ottoman Empire with beautiful slaves.