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218 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
of sight without heed of
locaHty. In the centre of many hamlets
there is a veneraljle tree or ti'unk— at Latal a walnut, at Mestia a
birch, at Lenjer a cherry —under which are placed two or three rude
stone seats. Tree-worship survives in many parts of the Caucasus.
The sacred groves of the Circassians are described in Bell's and
Longworth's Tixivels, those of the Ossetes by Hahn. There is a
sacred wood close to the deserted monastery of St. Quiricus, near
Kalde in Suanetia. In the Alps a few groves that possibly owe
their survival to the same worship still exist. There is a patch of
old beechwood near the shrine at Forno, above Lanzo.
Of Christian observances the Lenten Fast is the chief still held in
any
honour. The men are said to assemble outside the churches
on Twelfth Day and the first Sunday in Lent, while the women
are never allowed to approach them. Three days in the week are
kept as holidays, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Carlyle somewhere
says that the only virtue of his counti-ymen consists in keeping the
Sabbath. Judged by this test the Suanetians might be held to
Ije even more virtuous than the Scotch !
The Suanetians were, it must be added, arrant thieves, cattle-
lifters, and sheep-stealers, who would on occasion carry off a girl
as readily as a sheep across their saddle-bows. M. de Berno-
ville relates how one such captive was released by the Kussian
Expedition of 1869. Their foreign relations were in consequence
habitually strained. They in fact consisted for the most part in
wai'like undertakings and predatory forays on their neighbours'
pastures. The great glaciers of the main chain, passes of the
nature of the St. Theodule and Col d'Herens, were no obstacle to
these sturdy marauders. The Turkish mountaineers had to build
watch-towers, and keep guard, in order to protect their flocks
and herds. I myself saw in 18G8 stolen oxen being driven hastily
across the Dongusorun Pass, and so frightened were our porters
of their probable reception on the north side, after their country-
men's misdemeanours, that we had the greatest difliculty in
inducing them to remain with us. Dr. Radde recounts the robbery
of five hundred sheep by Suanetians of the Skenis Skali.
Strangers naturally
seldom came to Suanetia. I can count