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CHAPTER III
CAUCASIAN HISTORY AND TKAVEL
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how
things uiav he to sec them as they are. dr. samuel johnson.
^HERE are still several questions
to which the reader interested
in the Caucasus may be glad
of an answer before we leave
generalities and plunge into
the heart of the mountains.
To what races do the inhabi-
tants of the hiirh vallevs belong,
and what is their character ?
How does a journey beyond
the post-roads compare witli
or Eastern travel ? What are the most marked
ordinary Alpine
features in Caucasian landscapes, and in what points do they most
difler from the familiar scenery of the Alps ?
This is hardly the place for an essay on the ethnology of the
Caucasus. That difficult, obscure, and extremely complicated
subject has already supplied material for several portly volumes and
a number of special
ti'eatises. M. Chantre's handsome work is
valuable in itself, and also for the numerous references contained in
the preface. The Guide cm Caucase, published in Paris by M.
Mourier in 1894, contains a useful popular summary of pi'esent
knowledge. In subsequent chapters I shall find room for sketches
of the principal tribes encountered by the mountaineer under
the snows of the central chain.
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