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The Exploration of the Caucasus

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The Exploration of the Caucasus i^#.-p|S@:fc 1 ; . 1 - •f'St^' D-: t- ^. / I The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924091762561 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS VOLUME I THE EXPLORATION OP THE CAUCASUS BY DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD LATELY PEESIDBNT OF THE ALPINE CLUB FORMERLY HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY ro L UME I SECOND EDITION LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD 1902 All rights retierved L-L. : — oivf—~^- X - In ^tcmoriam W. F. D. 18S8 Mens nive candidior, niviuin depingere sellers Effigies vivas, sole juvante, manus : Rupibus aeriis ingens ubi Caucasus liorret, Quam procul, lieu ! patria, dulcis amice, jaces. Nulla suburbano posuit te pompa sepulcro, Nee tibi supremum vox pia dixit Ave. Discretos eineres cingunt candentia mundi Mcenia ; custodes sidera sola loci Corripuit gremio dignum Natura ministrum ; Pro tumulo picta3 stant monimenta iiives. White soul, in lands of purer light Who caught the secrets of the sno\i', For you no priest performed the rite, No hireling led the funeral show ; Lost on the far Caucasian height, We know not how ; we only know The guardian stars their vigils keep. The riiountain walls their ward extend, Where Nature holds in quiet sleep Her own interpreter and friend. D. W. F. TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM FREDERICK DONKIN THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHORS PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION In these volumes I have endeavoured to bring together much material previously scattered and difficult of access to the public. It has been my object to make my chapters such a series of sketches of the Central Caucasus, its scenery and its people, as may stir pleasurable memories, or anticipations among travellers, and also interest that great body of readers vs^ho love mountains and like to hear about their exploration. The arrangement of the book is in the main topographical : that is to say, I have abandoned chronological order and continuity in the narrative of particular journeys in order to bring together the facts concerning each district, or portion of the chain, into single, or consecutive, chapters. The method has its drav^^backs ; but on the whole these have seemed to me in the present instance to be more than counter- balanced by its advantages. The record of adventure may be less vivid, but the pictures of the country and its people should gain in definiteness, and it ought to be easier to select characteristic facts from among trivial details. The Appendix records every New Expedition which had come to my knowledge at the date of its compilation. In the body of the work I seem to myself to have given too much space to my own doings. If I have erred in this direction, it has been partly in order to preserve some literary unity, partly because I have travelled in the country more widely and at longer intervals of time than most of my countrymen. In the course of three journeys—in 1868 and again in 1887 and 1889 viii THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS chain of the —it has been my good fortune to traverse the main Caucasus eleven times by eight different passes, and to cross in and out of Suanetla eight times by seven different routes. I have taken j^art in the first ascents of three of the great peaks, Elbruz, Kasbek, and Tetnuld, and of several lesser summits, as well as in many other glacier expeditions of greater difficulty than any of these ascents. My travels have led me, I believe, into almost every considerable glen at the foot of the main chain between Elbruz and Adai Khokh, and I have penetrated the pathless forests of the Skenis Skali and the Kodor. The object of the present edition is to place my volumes within the reach of readers who object to heavy and costly illustrated works. I have not thought it expedient to revise or modify the original text. Nor do I feel called on to enter here into the many and minute questions of topography and orthography raised by Dr. Merzbacher in the two thousand pages in which he has recently recorded his travels in the Caucasus. To do so would involve much argument, hardly interesting to the general public. I gladly, however, take this opportunity to add the title of his work " Aus den Hochregionen des Kaukasus" to the list of books recommended in my Appendix. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGE THE DISCOVERERS OF THE CAUCASUS, . .' . 1 CHAPTER 11. THE CHAEACTERISTICS OF THE CAUCASUS, . 27 CHAPTER III. CAUCASIAN HISTORY AND TRAVEL, . .... 59 CHAPTER IV. KASBEK AND THE OSSETE DISTRICT, . 80 CHAPTER V. THE MAMISON PASS AND GEBI, 104 CHAPTER VI. THE ADAI KHOKH GROUP, 126 CHAPTER VII. THE VALLEY OF THE UEUKH, . 146 VOL. L h TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII. PAGE 157 BALKAH AND BEZINGI, . • CHAPTER IX. 182 THE PATHS TO SUANETIA, . ... CHAPTER X. SUANETIA, .... 202 CHAPTER XI. TEAVEL AND MOUNTAINEERING IN SUANETIA, ' 1868-87-89, . .... 230 CHAPTER XII. THE ASCENT OF TETNULD, . .... 259 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT SUBJECT OP ILLUSTRATION". Photographed by Page from View the Mestia Pass, M. de Dechy Frontispi&ce W. P. Donkin, V Ushba, ... V. Sella 8 Koshtantau, from about 14,600 feet on Ulluauz Bashi, A. W. Moore, C.B., .... Signer Sella and his Men, V. Sella Russian Surveyors and English Climbers, H. Woolley Dykhtau from the West, .... V. Sella Shepherd and Plock near Karaul, The Kalde Glacier, . The Source of the Ingur, . The Skenis Skali Forest, Crossing the Chain, . Elders of Urusbieh, Suanetians, A Suanetian Hunter, la the Kalde Valley, H. Woolley Alpine Guides in a Kosh, .... The Sources of the Skenis Skali, V. Sella Shkara from Ushkul, Ornaments from Graves in Ossetia, Frangois J. Devouassoud, 1895, . , Ossete Shepherds, , M. de Di^chy The Devdorak Glacier, H. Woolley An Ossete Village, . ... M. de D(5ohy A Farm near Kutais, H. Woolley Peasants at Gobi, V. Sella New Church at Gebi, Silver Eikons at Gebi, . Ancient Church Pictures at Gebi, A Front Door at Gebi, The Karagom Glacier, . Karagom Khokh, . , , The Lower Ice-fall of the Zea Glacier, M. de Dechy An Ossete Grandfather, . ... V. Sella The Moraine of the Karagom Glacier, The Interpreter and Baggage Train, Ossete Tombs at Zinago, . Ossete Wideawakes, ... Xll ILLUSTEATIONS IN" THE TEXT SUBJECT OF ILLDSTKATION. Photographed hy At Naltshik, . The Mountains from Naltshik^ The Gorge of the Cherek, The (Jherek Valley and Fytnargyn, . Bezingi, Zageri, The Cancellaria, Cholnr, The Path above Lentekhi, Native Travellers, The Source of the Skenis Skali, Dwellers in the Wilderness, A Snanetian Landscape, A Tower at Ushkul, Church with Frescoes at Lenjer, Triptych at Mestia, . Ancient Church Ornaments at Mestia, Funeral Feast at Mazeri, Ushkul, ' Street in Ushkul, Watermills at Ushkul, The Hunter's Home, Ushkul, Suanetian Homesteads, The Government Buildings, Betsho, Gulba, Suanetian Women, ' A Mountaineer's At Home,' . Ipari, The Adish Glacier, . Suanetians, . , A Boy at Mujal, . , Suanetian Hunter, A . CHAPTER I THE DISCOVEEEES OF THE CAUCASUS The power of attaching an interest to the most triffing and painful pursuits i§ one of the greatest happinesses of our nature, hazlitt. N the Old World of the West—the orbis veterihus notus of our atlases—the World of the Bible and the Classics — there were only two great mountain- ranges whose crests pierced into the region of eternal snow, and sent down streams of ice—those Miracles of Nature, as a mediasval scholar aptly called glaciers—among the forests and the corn- fields of the valleys. These ranges both rose at the farthest extremities of the civilised earth. The mountains that shadowed the homes, formed part of the daily life, and were woven into the enjoyment, the poetry, and the religion of the i-aces who dwelt round the Midland Sea, were of a different type. The heights of Lebanon, the pathless crests of Parnassus, the deep glens and wide pastures of the Apennines ^ have little in common with the peaks, passes, and glaciers of the High Alps or of the Frosty 1 The upper portions of tlie Apennines are in many cases wide pastures. They are, in Tuscany, locally known as Alpi, and Dante in more than one passage, I think, used the word in this sense. The primary meaning of the widespread term 'Alp' is everywhere 'high moun- tain pasturage,' and it was from its pastures or middle zone, and not from any primitive root ' denoting whiteness, that the range we call the Alps ' got its name. VOL. I. A 2 THE EXPLOKATION OF THE CAUCASUS Caucasus. There is no region or zone in them which is not adapted which the shepherd for some human use ; there are few heights and his flock may not chmb in search of summer coolness. The less accessible crags and hollows were, indeed, looked up to for ages with a certain reverence as places on the borderland of the spiritual world, sites whence a god might issue his oracles, where a patriarch or a prophet might commune with the Infinite, or himself vanish into the Unseen. The horror of great mountains and wild scenery among primitive people and in early ages has been, I think, not a little exaggerated by writers imbued with the literature of the last century, and the artificial taste which it expressed. In most of the religions and legends of the woiid mountains have held a large place. Their importance in Bible story was fully set out for the entertainment of the curious so long ago as a.d. 1606 by Eebmann, a Swiss pastor, who proved in a volume of rhymed verse, much to his own satisfaction, his thesis of the important part played by High Places in the dealings of God with man.^ The Greek, who gazed up from the river-plains and sea- beaches to the crests of Olympus, Taygetus, or Parnassus, associated them with the council-chamber of the gods, the home of Pan, or the haunt of Apollo.
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