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6 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
which was published, with a map, in London in 1788.' At a
more recent date we meet with one or two names famous in
literature. To those who apjjreciate fticts served up with a strong
flavour of wit and romance, Alexandre Dumas, the elder, offers
three very entertaining and picturesque volumes. The famous
novelist, Count Tolstoi, has written some charming tales, based
on the experiences of his early life and full of local colour.
Those who prefer more solid fare may be recommended to consult
the list given in the second volume of this work. Yet despite
this mass of literature, '
the Caucasus,' in the limited sense in
which the term is used in these pages, was, up
to the middle of
this century, even less known in Western Europe than the Alps
were throughout the Middle Ages. Nothing had been certainly or
accurately
ascertained as to the structure or characteristics of the
central range, the extent of its snows, the height of its peaks,
the character of its passes, the relations of its groups, or the
peculiarities of their scenery.
It is, or ought to be, obvious that a chain cannot be fully or
scientifically described until its essential features above as well as
below the snow-line have been discovered and examined. In this
limited sense the members of the first Alpine Club party, that
which I organised in 1868, may fairly
be called the discoverers
of the Central Caucasus. Before our journey no great peak of
the chain had ever been climbed, and no pass over the range
between Kasbek and Elbruz had ever been described, except
from hearsay, in any book of travel."
The mountaineers who have followed us—and as climbers so
' Memoir of a Map nf the Countries comprehended between the Black Sea and the Cas^pian,
with an Accoimt of the Caucasian Nations and Vocabularies of their Languages (anonymous).
London : Edwards, 1788.
2 The excellent reasons that exist for not believing in the alleged ascent of Elbruz in 1829
by a Cossack, named Killar, attached to an expedition led liy General Emmanuel and described
in KupfFer's Voyage dans !es Environs du Mont Elbrouz, 1830, will be found stated at length
by the Rev. H. B. George {Alp. J. vol. ii. p. 168), Mr. F. F. Tuckett {Alp. J. vol. iv. p. 167),
by myself {Central Caucasus, p. 497), and by M. de Dechy {Bull. Soc. Geog. Hongr. vol.
xiii. No. 3, and Mitt, des D. und CE. Alpenvereins, 1885, p. .57. The '
ascents '
of Kasbek of
Wagner (1808) and Parrot (1811), recounted quite seriously in 18G8 by German newspapers,
were of the order of the 'ascensions du Mont Blanc jusqu'au Montenvers.' and their makers
never claimed more than to have reached the snow-level.
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