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68 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
sense of time. If a traveller lets them discover that he is in a
hurry, or is dependent on their aid, they will take every advantage
of the situation. Though not bloodthirsty, they are quick-tempered,
and it is their custom to wear arms, and their habit to draw their
daggers when excited. The action, it is true, is in most cases little
more than an oratorical gesture, but there have been —
exceptions
a Eussian Governor of Mingrclia was once poignarded by a
Suanetian Prince—and it is obviously expedient to observe the
limits of polite discussion. The high-handed manner which is almost
de rigiieur with a Russian postmaster is quite thrown away on
the jDeople of the mountains. The Caucasian traveller has further
to guard against the greatest enemy of explorers, and that which
the Alpine climber is least prepared for— different forms of illness.
The imperfectly baked and coarse rye-bread, poor diet and ex-
posure have in many cases, particularly among the Alpine guides
taken out, resulted in dysentery.
Sea bi'eed fevers, and in one
The lowlands towards the Black
— pai'ty that of 1874 — all the
mountaineers were attacked— it
partly, is true, through their own
imprudence in bathing at sunrise in the notoriously malarious
waters of the Kodor. Personally, I have never suffered in any
way from the climate, nor has my old guide D^vouassoud, and I
believe, with a little care and preventive doses of quinine, the
chance of falling ill in the one or two days spent within the
fever -level by those who approach the mountains from the south,
may be reduced to a very
remote one. On the north side there
is no risk whatever. The atmosphere, however, is generally
and the effects of a chill are not
damper than that of the Alps,
so quickly thrown off.
In the preceding sentences I have made the most of the
difficulties to be encountered. Many of them can be obviated ;
others are diminishing year by year. The traveller,
if he is a
person of ordinary discretion, need now be under no apprehension
as to his personal security.
Such being the condition of the countiy, it is obvious that
what is needed to make travel easy
is the establishment of
a system similar to that which for many years has proved so