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THE DISCOVEKEKS OF THE CAUCASUS 11
than that in use at Constantinople. Copies of this vohime
doubtless exist.
Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace, in his classical WDrk on Russia,
describes his visit to the site of the colony, and his encounter
with a convert, a '
Scotch Circassian,' speaking the Lowland dialect,
who informed him that his name was John Abercronibie. The
missionaries, if they could not evangelise, seem to have done
their best to Scotticise, the Caucasus. They even converted Elbruz
into Allburrows I
From their home on the spui's of Beshtau our countrymen could
watch the shadows pass over the snows of the great mountain, and
dawn and its evening paint double crest, but they could not even
approach its base. Up to 1820 the fierce tribes of the Karatshai
prevented any attempts to penetrate their fastnesses. Dr. Abich,
writing in 1854, states that no traveller had up to that date
visited Suanetia. The highroad through the Darial was the only
track open to traflSc across the main chain.
In the northern valleys of the Central Caucasus, our earliest
predecessors, other than Russian officials, were the German ethno-
logists, Klaproth (1808), and ^Yagner (1843). They confined
themselves mostly to their special pursuit, and when they
approached the snowy region their descriptions become so general
that competent critics are still in doubt how much of their
narratives may be based on hearsay,
and how much on actual
experience.
Our immediate forerunners in the exploration of the centz'al
chain were also two Germans, who were in the employment of
the Kussian Government, and resided at Tiflis, where I had the
good
fortune to meet them both in 1868.
Tlie correspondence of Dr. Abich, which has recently (1895),
been published, shows the extent of his wanderings in the upper
valleys. He had visited most of them, including Suanetia, before
1865, and had measured the lower extremities of several of the
glaciers. He saw Koshtantau in 1849 from the heights between
Balkar and Bezingi, and heard it called Dumala Bashi. But he
kept to himself all but a few facts and figures.
Dr. Al)ich was