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70 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS his employers. A knowledge of Russian alone is inadequate. It is possible to get along in the mountains with Russian, but, the traveller misses much useful information from the inhabitants, few of whom are as yet familiar with it. This difficulty will doubt- ALPIXE GUIDES IS A KOSH less tend to diminish with the spread of schools. Even a good dragoman, however, cannot obviate the endless troubles and intei'minable discussions involved in engaging baggage animals. My advice to the traveller is either to buy horses at starting, or to hire for the whole journey. To do so may entail arranging his route so as to cross the main chain by horse-passes. But he will save
CAUCASIAN liLsTOKY AND TRAVEL 71 himself nuich loss of time and of the patience which, as Mr. Donkin once pointed out, is the greatest of all recjuisites in Caucasian travel. Hitherto I have dwelt, perhaps too strongly, on the draw- backs and difficidties of travel in the Caucasus. What are its rewards 1 Does the scenery equal or surpass that of the Swiss Alps ? Such questions are often put, but I can hardly hope to give any generally acceptable answer to them. According to my experience, appreciation of scenery for its own sake is far less universal nowadays than is generally assumed. Our contemporaries require social distraction. There are among them comparatively few who can be content to live with a landscape. Painters do so now and then, but their interest in nature is partly professional, and apt to extend only as far as they see their way to reproduce effects. To the public, sceneiy is welcome as a background for sport, or adventure, or — society for shooting, for climbing, or for picnicing. Our appreciations depend more and more upon accidental circumstances. Thirty years ago the Alps were full of wanderers who might properly be called travellers. Now, most of our countrymen inns and crowded neglect any spot that is not provided with good with their acquaintances. At the same time, a cry is raised that Switzerland is overcrowded, that the Alps are exhausted. It is of our own choice if we submit to be herded in hotels, or packed still closer in the outhouses known as Club-huts. The Playground of Europe has still sufficient quiet them. The Alps can never be exhausted, except corners for those who care to find to tourists of the baser sort. Their old lovers never revisit them without discovering some new beauty. But then we are content to do without such comfort as may be found in tables d'hote, bands, dances, daily newspapers, and a weekly British Chaplain. Those Avho in their search for scenery are not independent of these luxuries will do well to put up with Zermatt or the Engadine, and to avoid the Caucasus. It is not for them that I attempt here to analyse, from the point of view of an old frequenter of the Alps, the peculiar characteristics of the new region it has been my good fortune to investigate. I may best convey the broad distinction between the first aspect
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70 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS<br />
his employers. A knowledge of Russian alone is inadequate. It<br />
is possible to get along in the mountains with Russian, but, the<br />
traveller misses much useful information from the inhabitants,<br />
few of whom are as yet familiar with it. This difficulty will doubt-<br />
ALPIXE GUIDES IS A KOSH<br />
less tend to diminish with the spread of schools. Even a good<br />
dragoman, however, cannot obviate the endless troubles and intei'minable<br />
discussions involved in engaging baggage animals. My<br />
advice to the traveller is either to buy horses at starting, or to hire<br />
for the whole journey. To do so may entail arranging his route<br />
so as to cross the main chain by horse-passes. But he will save
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