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CAUCASIAN ULSTURY AND TKAVEl. 69
successful in Syria. A dragoman and camp-equipment — lighter,
no doubt, than that used in the comparatively open country of
Palestine— ought to he procurable at Kutais and Vladikavkaz.
Up to the present time, unfortunately, nothing of the kind exists.
Tiflis indeed can furnish half-a-dozen '
dragomen,' or travelling
servants and intei'preters, but these ai'e for the most part fine
gentlemen, not at all eager to encounter the hardships and
exposure of mountain exploration, even in the very
modified form
in which they have to be faced l\v a commissariat officer at
the headquarters' camp. They prefer to accompany celebrated
travellers on the post-roads of Daghestan, or the highways of
Persian and Central Asiatic travel. Slowly, however— very
slowly — as year by year more and more foreigners penetrate the
mountain region, some supply is springing up to meet the demand.
An intelligent Jew, a young Mingrelian, who has been trained
in a consular household, a German who has failed in his private
speculations ; one of these men may generally be picked up at
Kutais or Vladikavkaz and will serve, for better, for worse, as the
mountaineer's master of the horse, interpreter,
and cook. But none
of them, as far as I know, is yet enough of a capitalist to provide
himself with camp-equipment, and for a traveller to bring
out his own camp-equipment is, owing to the veiy heavy import
duties in llussia, a serious matter for those who contemplate, perhaps,
only a six weeks' journey.^ Members of the Alpine Club have invariably
received great courtesy and consideration from the Russian
Government. They have also, by leaving part of their equipment
behind them at Batura, for their successors' use, extended to one
another a certain amount of mutual accommodation. But this
resource naturally cannot in all cases be reckoned on, and as a rule
the Caucasian traveller has to bring with him tents and provisions,
and to find, in a sense often to make, his own dragoman. It is
essential that this functionary should be proficient in at least four
languages : speak, that is, Russian, Georgian, and Turkish, in
addition to the Western language in which he communicates with
1 Caucasian explorers may be reminded that the duties are very largely diminished in tlie
case of all goods that show marks of previous use.