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78 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
aud so they go to work in their own way. It has proved, and
must prove, a disastrous way.
To preach caution to youthful ambitions and energies is too
often a waste of ink, or breath. It is better to provide them
with a new outlet. I follow the fashion of medical science in
recommending change of air and scene. A new playground is
wanted for those of our countrymen to whom the first element of
a holiday is to break away from their daily duties and habits, to
live out of doors, to exercise their muscles, to freshen their minds
by intercourse with human beings leading altogether dissimilar
existences and in another stage of civilisation from themselves.
There are Englishmen now, as there were forty years ago, who,
without being travellers by ^^I'ofession — being indeed active
members of learned — professions
find pleasure and refreshment in
rough travel among primitive people, in mountain scenery and in
glacier air, in that sense of adventure and discovery which is
best afibrded by tlie virgin heights of a great snowy chain. To
such travellers— or Vacation Tourists— my friend Signor Vittorio
Sella and I offer in these volumes the Caucasus.''
The finest portion of the range has, as I have shown, been
brought within their reach. The country is not only attainable ;
it is ripe for travellers. Since 1880 the Russian Government
has tightened its control over the mountain tribesmen. The good
sense and patience shown by English and other mountaineers in
their dealings with officials and natives— above all, our habit of
paying for services rendered us, have borne fruit. The dangers
of travel below the snow-line are at an end ; its difficulties decrease
yearly ; even its delays yield to practised persistence. Caucasian
exploration is a much harder game to play than Alpine climbing ;
it calls for more varied qualities, much patience, and some endurance
and experience. But the game is emphatically worth the candle.
I cannot enforce my recommendation better than by echoing
and enlarging on the advice given to the Alpine Club by my friend
offer to
sportsmen. The subject has been recently and .adequately dealt with in M. Mourier's Guide au
Caucase and the Biy Game volume of the Badminton Series.
' I have said nothing here of the Fauna of the Caucasus or of the attractions it may