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CHAPTER II
THE CHARACTEUISTICS OF THE CAUCASUS
Why are comprehensive works adapted for the general reader and student of nature to be
replaced entirely by studied monographs connected with some single science in some single
district ? principal jajies d. forbes.
[KNERAL chapters are apt
to be dull. Yet some
sort of framework must
be provided for the pictiu'es
of travel and ad-
venture to follow. The
obsolete fiction I have
undertaken to get rid of
has to be replaced by
more correct information.
— dealing here broadly with the outlines, and only indicating the
I shall do my best to convey it in a compact and convenient form
local colours. Topographical details, such as are called for by the
explorer and the mountaineer, I shall reserve for an Appendix,
where they will not only be accessible to him, but also avoidable
by the ordinary reader, who has no time and small patience for
such matters.
Let us, with a general map before us, glance, as quickly as
possible, at the elements of Caucasian orography. The really
mountainous part of the chain, from Fish Dagh on the west to
Basardjusi on the east, is over 400 miles long, a distance about
equal to that between Monte Viso and the Semmering in the Alps.
Its skirts stretch out for another 150 and 100 miles respectively to
the neighbourhoods of Baku, on the Caspian, and of Novorossisk, the