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4 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
to what uses they may come ! He
stigator and guide of the first EngUsh
had made himself the in-
mountaineers who visited
the Caucasus.
As a child I had spent several summer holidays in the Alps.
As an Eton boy I had reached the Sixth Form and the top of Mont
Blanc at about the same period. When, in 1868, my Oxford terms
wei-e over, and I had a larger opportunity of indulging my love
of mountain travel, the sonorous phrases of the Prometheus
Vinctus were ringing freshly in my ears,^ and I was possessed by
an ambition to carry the methods of Alpine exploration, in which
I had already taken some part, into a range which, though half
in Europe and comparatively near home, was practically unknown,
even to the leaders of our learned Societies. I was fortunate
in finding three very congenial and capable companions, and
together we were able to a great extent to dispel the obscurity
which then overhung the recesses of the Caucasian chain, to
reveal to our countrymen some of its many beauties, to take, in
short, the first step towards converting the Prison of Prometheus
into a new Playground for his descendants."
Before going farther, let me clear away a frequent source of
popular misunderstanding. The word Caucasus is commonly used
in two distinct senses. It may be a term of political, or of physical,
geography. It may cover the whole of the Caucasian Provinces,
or it may be restricted to a mountain range that occupies only a
comparatively small part of those Provinces. In the larger sense
the Caucasus has, of coui'se, been more or less well known in
^
I may suggest to coinmeatators that the story of lo's journey is much siniplitieil
if the
ancient Korax, the modern Bsyb, is identified with the vfipia-rriv TrnTafiov oi •^fv&iow^uv of the
poet. P.V. 736. Kdpa^ was certainly a word connected with insults at Athens, and the Bsyb
is still the most formidable and unfordable stream on the Black Sea coast. I wonder whether
scholiasts will allow us to read 'A^aa-ias for 'Apafiias ? P.V. 420. 'Ajiaalas t apttnv avdos
'YyjfiKprifivov ot nvXia-fia KavKacrov Tre'Xar vifiovrat. Procopius (rfc B. (?., Book iv., chap, ix.)
describes the city-fortress of the Aliasci in terms exactly fitting in witli the !
poet's epithet
The fortress was taken and burnt by the Romans, but its ruins still exist near Sukhum Kale
'
under the name of Anakopi. See Laurence Uliphant's Travels in (,'ircassia' in vol. xii. of
Blackwood's Series, Travel, Adventure, and Sjxirt. But, on the other hand, Arabia and
Circassia are rej5uted to have had ancient
the jiilgrimage to Mecca.
connections which were strengthened, not created, by
1869.
- See Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan, by Douglas W. Freshfield. Longmans,