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CAUCASTAX HISTORY A XI) TRAVEL .
79
Mr. Clinton Dent after his lirst journey in 188G. To those who
have the strength, energy, and experience, the earlv explorers of the
'
Caucasus would say :— We have found at the other end of
Eui-ope
a strange country, where giant peaks wait for you — i-emote, sublime,
inaccessible to all but their most patient lovers. If you worship
the mountains for their own sake ; if you like to stand face to
face with Nature where she mingfles the fantastic and the sublime
with the sylvan and the idyllic — snows, crags and mists, flowers
and forests— in perfect harmony ; where she enhances the eftect
of her pictures by the most startling contrasts, and enlivens their
foregrounds with some of the most varied and picturesque specimens
of the human race— 2fo to the Caucusus. If vou wish to
change not onlv vour earth and skv but your centurv, to find
yourselves one week among the pastoral folk who once peopled
Northern Asia, the next among barbarians who have been left
stranded while the rest of the world has flowed on ; if it attracts
you to share the bivouacs of Tauli shepherds, to sit at supper
with a feudal chieftain, while his retainers chant the old ballads of
their race by the light of bii'ch-bark torches— go to the Caucasus.
If you can live without bed or board, without newspapers or tables
d'hote, if you can climb on boiled mutton, black bread and sour
milk, get your tents ready and be off. You will never regret
the exertion or the cost, for you will not only enjoy yourselves,
you will bi'ing back, for use in after years, a store of memories,
of glimpses of another world, such as no Alpine journey has
ever given you. And when home-keeping youths expatiate on
the charms of " the old places," you will rejoice that among your
"old places" are Betsho and Balkar, Dykhtau and Shkara, the
new names of the Caucasus.'