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the same region in terms, it is true, trenching
SUANETIA 203
less on the marvellous
but sufficiently similar to suggest a common basis for the legends.
El Masudi's valley is enclosed by a wall raised from below upwards,
two miles high and fifty miles in circumference. This barrier
renders it impossible to go within the enclosure. By night
many lights may be seen in it in different places, and by day
are discovered ^illages, men, and cattle, but everything ajjpears
little, on account of the height from which the spectator looks
down. Nobody knows what nation the inhabitants belong to,
for they are unable to climb up, and no one who ascends to the
top can go down to them.'
The more old travellers' tales I read the more convinced I
become that nine times out of ten there is some truth at the
bottom of them, some foundation in fact for the most picturesque
superstructures of fancy. Hanyson reads very like an anagram of
Soany, Saures might easily be Chosroes, the clouds that gather
under the great peaks and overshadow the southern valleys at
their feet might very well be represented as covering a land of
darkness. The Suanetians keep herds of horses, and much
poultiy. Both stories, the English and the Arabian, seem to
me to be probably based on the vague reports of wanderers
who hatl stood on the ridge of the Latpari and seen the green
pastures and white towers of Suanetia far below through the
breaks in the storm-clouds. Let us, too, halt here for a moment
in our travels in order to collect some details as to the natural
characteristics, past history, and present
Valley of the Caucasus.
condition of this Lost
Suanetia, the country of the Suans— excluding Dadian's
Suanetia on the Skenis Skali— is the whole upper basin of
the Ingur abo^'e the great gorge through which it finds a way
out to the lowlands near Sugdidi, a town some fifty miles west
of Kutais. It is about forty miles long by fifteen broad, and
in size and general features may be compared to the valley of
Aosta. The Laila chain will then take the place of the Grand
Paradis, the Zagar Pass that of the Col de la Seigne, and the
'
Sprenger'a Translation,
vol. i.