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10 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
even in the higliest quarters. Mr. Darwin told me that in 1869
Sir Charles Lyell, holding my book in his hand, had greeted him
with the exclamation, ' '
No lakes in the Caucasus !
Some distinguished fellow-countrymen of our own had, no
doubt, been among the mountains before us, but they had hardly, if
at all, penetrated the central region,
or above the snow-level. Their
objects had been political ; Bell and Longvvorth and Spencer had,
between 1836 and 1845, while the hill-tribes were still struggling
for independence, wandered to and fro in the western ranges among
the mountains of Circassia and along the Black Sea coast. Mr.
Laurence Oliphant, at the time of the Crimean War, had visited
and vividly described portions of the same region ; Mr. Gifibrd
Palgrave, while Vice-Consul at Sukhum Kale, had ridden in 1867
to the land of the Karatshai, probably over the Klukhor Pass.
But none of these Avriters had been in the Central Caucasus at all.
At an earlier date Scottish missionaries were settled outside it
at a place called Karass, near the Caucasian Baths, and one of
them, Dr. Henderson, better known as the author of a work of
Icelandic travel, published in 1826 a book containing what was,
perhaps, the first attempt — I cannot say a successful attempt — to
delineate Kasbek.^
This mission was founded in 1802, and dissolved by the Emperor
Nicholas in 1835. It had a branch near Vladikavkaz. After more
than twenty years' labours Dr. Henderson was compelled to report
that little progress had been made. He quaintly adds :
'
Were the
temporal concerns of the colony entirely
abandoned to the care of
pious men of agricultural habits, and a sufficient number of able and
devoted missionaries sent to labour among the Mohammedans in this
quainter, a very
considerable abandonment of the delusions of the
Ai'abian Prophet might be expected to ensue.' The missionaries,
however, found means to set up a printing press, and in 1807
published the New Testament in the old Turkish dialect spoken
by the mountaineei's, which is less mixed with Persian and Arabic
1 Biblical Researches and Travels in Russia, inchicling a Tonr in the Crimea, and the Passage
of the Caucastis, by E. Henderson. London : Nisbct, lS-2(). See also Journal of a Tour
from Astrachan to Karass, by the Rev. William Glen. Edinburgh, 1822.