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THE DISCOVERERS OF THE CAUCASUS 5
Europe for many centuries. Classical authors had already described
its western seaboard. We read of Poti, in Hadrian's time, as
surrounded bv brick walls and furnished with war engines and a
of 400 men to preserve it from the attacks of the
garrison
barbarians. When Arrian went there he saw an alleged memorial
of the Argonauts — nothing less than Jason's anchor— exposed to
view. He was critical enough to discredit the relic because it was
of bronze, and he thought Jason's anchor must have been of
stone ! We
can even catch glimpses of the snowy range, '
about
the height of the Keltic Alps,' says Arrian, making a very fair
guess. And he goes on, 'a certain peak of the Caucasus was
pointed
out (Strobilus is the peak's name) where, it is fabled,
Prometheus was chained by Hephajstus by the orders of Zeus.'
Strobilus—Elbruz we now call it— is still there, lifting its great
pinecone-shaped mass over the crest of the central chain. Strabo
and Pliny Ijoth tell us how the mountain tribes came over the
passes to Dioskurias (near Sukhum Kale) by the aid of climbingirons
and toboggans. Such irons or crampons are still used, and
an ancient one, dug up in one of the cemeteries of Ossetia, was
given to me by M. DolbesheS" at Vladikavkaz. Similar foot-gear
has been found in the Eastern Alps, together with other objects
said to be attributable to a date not later than 400 B.C.^
In comparatively modern times, the number of travellers who
have visited the Caucasus, and thought their experiences worthy
of record, is prodigious. The BihViographia Caucasica, published
twenty years ago (1876) at Tiflis, is, though incomplete, a catalogue
of 800 pages, and nearly 5000 entries, ranging from the stately
folios of Chardin down to the half-crown booklet of the Boule-
vards and the scattered '
communications '—a sore trial to collectors
and cataloguers — of the German or Russian Member of Scientific
Societies. In point of date, Venetian travellers and Elizabethan
merchants head the list. The Empress Catherine in the last
century sent a savant, Guldenstaedt by name, to collect information
about the mountain tribes and their languages, much of
* See Mitt, des Deutschen und Oesterr. Alpenvereins, 1892, No. 9.