Uniform with 'Italian Alps,' with Three Maps, Two Panoramas of Summits, Four full-page Engravings on Wood, and Sixteen Woodcuts in the Text, in One Volume, price 18s.
TRAVELS in CENTRAL CAUCASUS and BASHAN: including Visits to Ararat and Tabreez, and Ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz.
Although the ethnology and history of the Caucasus have been treated of by various authors, information concerning its natural features had been up to the appearance of this volume scanty and difficult of access; and until the Summer of 1868 no Englishman had visited the most interesting of the chain, and its two most famous summits, Kazbek and Elbruz, were still unascended. The chief aim of the journey described in the present volume was to explore the interior of the chain and to effect the ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz. The Writer and his friends hoped by penetrating on foot the recesses of the mountains to learn the form of the peaks, the extent of the snow-fields and glaciers, and the character of the forest and flora, so as to be able to draw a general comparison between the Caucasus and the Alps.
Before, however, carrying out this part of their design the travellers made a rapid journey through Syria, in the course of which they visited the Hauran and Lejah districts, recently brought into notice by the supposed identification of the ruined towns still existing in them with the cities of the gigantic Rephaim laid waste by the Israelites. The Author records his conviction that this theory is unfounded, and that the ruins of the so-called 'Giant Cities' are in fact composed of Roman edifices mixed with many buildings of more recent date.
On landing in the Caucasus (which they reached by Russian steamer from Constantinople) the travellers proceeded to Tiflis, whence they made an expedition along the Persian high-road to Tabreez. On their return they partially ascended Ararat, paid a visit to the Armenian Patriarch at Etchmiadzin, and traversed a little-known portion of the Georgian and Arminian highlands.
Starting from Tiflis at the end of June, the travellers spent the next two months in mountain exploration. During this time they made the first successful ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz, traversed eleven passes, varying from 8,000 to 12,000 feet in height, and examined the sources of eight rivers and both flanks of the main chain for a distance of 120 miles. The greater portion of the volume is occupied by the narrative of their adventures in the mountains, and the difficulties arising both from the roughness of the country and of its inhabitants. The Author describes the Ossetes, a tribe known as 'the gentlemen of the Caucasus,' and contrasts the slothful and churlish Mingrelian races on the south side of the chain with the industrious and hospitable Tartars on the north.
Having crossed the main range by the Mamison Pass to the Rion sources, the party made an expedition to the Uruch Valley and back across the previously untrodden snow-fields of the central chain. The travellers' route then led them through the pathless swamps and forests of the Zenes-Squali into Suanetia, a mountain basin renowned for the barbarism of its inhabitants, the extraordinary richness of its vegetation, and the startling grandeur of the great peaks that overlook it. After more than one narrow escape from robbery, if not from actual violence, the Author and his companions passed along the valley to Pari, a Russian post; whence they again crossed the chain to the foot of Elbruz. Having ascended this mountain (18,520 feet), they proceeded to Pätigorsk, the centre of the Russian watering-places in Ciscaucasia and remarkable for the volume and variety of its mineral springs.
Before returning to Tiflis by Vladikafkaz and the Dariel Pass, the party explored the upper valleys of the Tcherek and Uruch, the entrances of which are guarded by stupendous defiles far exceeding in grandeur any Alpine gorges. The Tcherek has its source in the vast glaciers flowing from the flanks of Koschtantau and Dychtau, two of the most magnificent mountains of the range, which have hitherto remained in undeserved obscurity.
The concluding pages are devoted to a comparison between the Alps and the Caucasus, to a short account of a visit to the Crimea, and the Author's homeward journey across Russia. It is hoped that this record of travel and adventure amongst the mountain fastnesses of the Caucasus may prove of sufficient interest to draw the attention of Englishmen to a range surpassing the Alps by two thousand feet in the average height of its peaks, abounding in noble scenery and picturesque inhabitants, and even now within the reach of many 'long-vacation tourists.'
The Maps comprise a Route Map of the Hauran, the Caucasian Provinces, and the Central Caucasus. The Map of the Central Caucasus is reduced from the Five-Verst Map, executed by the Russian Topographical Department at Tiflis, with many corrections suggested by the experience of the writer and his fellow-travellers.