Caucasus

“ I have been over many thousands of miles of Russia afoot. The happiest times were in the Caucasus, by the Gorge of Dariel road, over the Cross Pass, or by the Rion valley over Mamison, or on the Caucasian shore of the Black Sea. When it is too hot to live in a house in a town, it is heaven on the mountains. Since the War, and the Revolution, the Caucasus has, unfortunately, become much more dangerous for travelers of all kinds. The tribes are warlike, and have been badly treated by Bolsheviks and Europeans in general. ”

“ The Caucasus is suited for general travelers, for lovers of the picturesque, whether or not they are painters, as well as for peak-hunters. If above its snow level its granite crests, its icy hollows, its hanging glaciers, and fluted snow slopes impress the intruder with a sublimity beyond that of the Alps, its high valleys have attractions for men of the most various pursuits and hobbies. The physical geographer will find materials for a contrast between the features of the Caucasus and those of better-known ranges. ”

“ All the great invaders of the prehistoric period smote the Caucasus with their impotent swords, but never passed beyond; and the first Europeans to find their way through the rocky labyrinths were Greek and Genoese traders, who crawled through the cañons on foot in the Middle Ages in search of customers. Much was risked for gold and glory in man’s struggle with nature that lasted many centuries here, and it was not until the territory was added to the Russian Empire early in the nineteenth century that the Caucasus became passable. ”

“ One of the most remarkable characteristics of the Caucasus is that, while it has acted as a barrier between the north and the south, stopping and turning aside the movements of population, it has also preserved within its sheltered recesses fragments of the different peoples who from time to time have passed by it, or who have been driven by conquest into it from the lower country. ”

“ The warlike tribes of the Caucasus have victoriously maintained their national independence; and in thus separating the trans-Caucasian provinces from the rest of the empire, they have protected Persia and Asiatic Turkey, and postponed indefinitely all thoughts of a Russian invasion of India. The cabinets of Europe have generally overlooked the importance of the Caucasus, and the part which its tribes are destined to play soon or late in eastern questions. ”

“ At Utsera it was raining on the Friday morning. At the next village, Glola, a thousand feet higher, the rain was changed for sleet. The road ascends through a fir wood said to be the grandest in the Caucasus; the pines are as broad-trunked as some of our famous oaks, and they rise straight as a die to almost incredible height. Their ancient hoariness and greyness add to their majestic appearance. ”

“ The most striking natural feature of this region is the great chain of the Caucasus, the most stupendous mountain mass of Western Eurasia. It strikes from north-west to south-east right across the country like a huge frowning wall, and in this respect resembles the Pyrenees, though its peaks are vastly higher and much of it is crowned with perpetual snow. So formidable and complete is this great natural barrier that no railway crosses it, and only two main roads have been constructed over its passes. ”

“ Thus limited, the Caucasus, including the territory occupied by the subject tribes, presents a surface of scarcely 5000 leagues; and it is in this narrow region that a virgin and chivalric nation, amounting at most to 2,000,000 of souls, proudly upholds its independence against the might of the Russian empire, and has for upwards of twenty years sustained one of the most obstinate struggles known to modern history. ”

“ I brought back from the Caucasus a memory that was sunny and full of gratitude for the charming welcome that I found there. My aunt often gives me news from there and old friends still send me their remembrances, and with all my heart I send them the same.
The Caucasian has the right to be proud of his beautiful country, with its ever blue sky and its ever temperate climate which seems to give him that wonderful joie-de-vivre expression which appeals so deeply to the stranger, who is always struck by that warm and unforgettable charm of welcome which greets him at every turn. ”

“ The tribes of the Caucasus may be comprehended, for the sake of simplicity, under two denominations: the Tcherkesses or Circassians, in the west, and the Tshetshens in the east. In loose newspaper statements, and in the garbled reports of the war which remote position, Russian jealousy, and the peculiarly inaccessible character of the Caucasians, suffer to reach us, even this broad distinction is frequently disregarded. ”

“ The curses of the Caucasus are as bitter and vindictive as its greetings are courteous and kind-hearted. I have often heard it said by the Persians and Tatars who live along the Lower Volga that there is no language to swear in like the Russian; and I must admit that they illustrated and proved their assertion when occasion offered in the most fluent and incontrovertible manner; but I am convinced, after having heard the curses of experts in all parts of the East, that for variety, ingenuity and force the profanity of the Caucasian mountaineers is unsurpassed. ”

“ For the better understanding of the war which Russia has been so long waging with the mountaineers, let us glance at the topography of the Caucasus, and the respective positions of the belligerents.
The chain of the Caucasus exhibits a peculiar conformation, altogether different from that of any of the European chains. The Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians are accessible only by the valleys, and in these the inhabitants of the country find their subsistence, and agriculture developes its wealth. ”

“ And besides the horror that attached to mountain scenes in general, we must remember that Caucasus was the very type of all that was most remote, barbarous, inhospitable. It was a place to which no civilised man could ever bear to go ”

“ All who have seen the ethnographical maps of the Caucasus must have been struck by the motley appearance which they present; fifty various tribes may in fact be counted in this isthmus, the area of which is less than that of Spain. I shall speak here only of [Pg 354] the Caucasians properly so called—that is to say, of the peoples who dwell only in the Caucasus, putting on one side all others (Iranians, Europeans, Turks, Mongols, Semites, etc.) who have overflowed into this country from the adjacent regions. ”

“ No other country which I have ever seen presents in an equally limited area such diversities of climate, scenery and vegetation as does the isthmus of the Caucasus. On the northern side of its white jagged backbone lies the barren wandering-ground of the Nogai Tatars—illimitable steppes, where for hundreds of miles the weary eye sees in summer only a parched waste of dry steppe-grass, and in winter an ocean of snow, dotted here and there by the herds and the black tents of nomadic Mongols. But cross the range from north to south and the whole face of Nature is changed. ”

“ Caucasus—Character of the Tribes—Circassian Slave Trade—Birth of Schamyl—Personal Appearance—Form of Government—His Army and Body-Guard—Financial Rule—Struggles with Russia—Personal Habits—Legend—Circassian Women in Battle—Escape from the Russians.
The valleys of the Caucasus afford abundance of detached rocks and overhanging cliffs, bathed by the foaming mountain torrents. On these or other almost inaccessible spots, are perched, like eagles’ nests, the aouls or villages of the natives. ”

“ The combined valleys of the Rion and the Kura, which intervene between the Caucasus and the Armenian highlands, and stretch their axes north-west and south-east respectively, embrace the most populous and most fertile parts of Caucasia. They correspond roughly with the governments of Kutais, Tiflis, Elisavetpol and Baku, and have a population of nearly 3,650,000. ”

“ For this reason I have on a previous occasion called this range Caucasus, and by the same name I shall continue to call it in the future. This Caucasus extends as far as the Great Sea which lies in the direction of India and the East. Of the rivers in Asia worth consideration which take their rise from the Taurus and Caucasus, some have their course turned towards the north, discharging themselves either into the lake Maeotis, [5] or into the sea called Hyrcanian, which in reality is a gulf of the Great Sea. ”

“ Ripley calls the Caucasus "a grave of peoples, of languages, of customs and physical types."172 Its base, north and south, and the longitudinal groove through its center from east to west have been swept by various racial currents, which have cast up their flotsam into its valleys. The pueblos of our arid Southwest, essentially an area of asylum, are inhabited by Indians of four distinct stocks, and only one of them, the Moquis, show clearly kinship to another tribe outside this territory,173 so that they are survivals. ”

“ Let us turn back to the Caucasus, of which we have not spoken in this discussion, though the independence of its tribes is in our opinion one of the most important obstacles to the aggrandisement of Russia in Asia; and let us imagine what are the immediate palpable interests which are at stake in the Trans-Caucasian regions for certain powers of Europe. Every one knows that Persia is become of late years the point of contact between England and Russia, the scene of competition between the two nations for the disposal of their merchandise. ”

“ People often ask with surprise why Russia does not take the field with 200,000 or even 300,000 men at once. We have already given sufficiently circumstantial details on the topography of the Caucasus, to enable every one to perceive immediately how difficult it is to employ large armies in regions so inaccessible, and so wonderfully defended by nature. Nor, on the other hand, must it be forgotten that the official strength of the army of the Caucasus is always at least 160,000 men. ”

“ Pure races of Caucasus may be persecuted, but they cannot be despised, except by the brutal ignorance of some mongrel breed, that brandishes fagots and howls extermination, but is itself exterminated without persecution, by that irresistible law of Nature which is fatal to curs.’
‘But I come also from Caucasus,’ said Coningsby.
‘Verily; and thank your Creator for such a destiny: and your race is sufficiently pure. You come from the shores of the Northern Sea, land of the blue eye, and the golden hair, and the frank brow: ‘tis a famous breed, with whom we Arabs have contended long ”

“ A parallel if less spectacular development could be observed in the Caucasus. After the establishment of the first center and the formation of an Assembly in Bákú, a city which Bahá’í pilgrims, traveling in increasing numbers from Persia to the Holy Land via Turkey, invariably visited, new groups began to be organized, and, evolving later into well-established communities, cooperated in increasing measure with their brethren both in Turkistán and Persia. ”

“ The task of preserving our position on the Mediterranean from the Black Sea has passed to the twentieth century.
To obtain possession of the Caucasus we had to fight twice with Persia in the nineteenth century, and were at war for sixty-two years with the mountaineers of the Caucasus. Before [Pg 34] arriving at our present frontier in Central Asia we had been making expeditions for thirty years. Our operations both in the Caucasus and in Central Asia were productive of many gallant feats. ”

“ H. E. Napier, Florentine History, volume 1, page 624. CATTI, The. See CHATTI. CATUVELLANI, The. See BRITAIN, CELTIC TRIBES. CAUCASUS AND THE CIRCASSIANS. The Russian conquest. "The Caucasus has always possessed a certain fascination not for the Russians only, but also for western nations, and is peculiarly rich in historical traditions, and in memories of ancient times and ancient nations. Here to the rocks of Elbruz, Prometheus lay chained; and to Colchis, where the Phasis flowed towards the sea, through ever green woods, came the Argonauts. ”

“ North of the Caucasus ranges the water-divide between these two seas descends from Mount Elbruz along the Sadyrlar Mountains (11,000 ft.) , and finally sinks into the Stavropol “plateau” (1600 ft.) . But the main axis of the transverse upheavals would appear to be continued in a north-eastern direction in the Andi and other parallel ranges of Daghestan, as stated under Caucasus.
The population in this region consists principally of Armenians, Tatars, Turks, Kurds, Ossetes, Greeks, with Persians, Tates and a few Russians (see particulars below) . ”

“ The Caucasus, which fills the space between two great seas, has been at all times an extremely important factor in history, severing the nomad races of Scythia from the more civilised and settled inhabitants of the valleys of the Phasis and the Kura. ”

“ Caucasus abounds in those columnar fanes, and it must not be forgotten that Caucasus has been claimed as the residence of our ancestors. On Teric banks, hard by, there is a very beautiful and lofty one as like as possible to some of ours. The door is described as twelve feet from the ground, level and rather oblong in its form. Lord Valentia was so struck with the extraordinary similitude observable between some very elegant ones which he noticed in Hindostan and those in this country, that he could not avoid at once making the comparison. ”