98 The Caucasian Mountain* and their Inhabitants. 



commonly taken by interpreters, conclude that this Titan, 



Prometheus, represents a people of Asia, who by cunning 

 and ingenuity, excited the jealousy of a superior power 

 (that -Jupiter represents in this myth), that drove them to 

 the Caucasian rocks and fastened them there; and while 

 their life and energy were renewed by constant additions 

 to their numbers, they were daily harassed and torn by 

 cruel enemies, represented by the vulture and eagle? 



About the origin of the name of this vast chain of moun- 

 tains, there is a wide difference of opinions. The term is 

 foreign to its people, and is thought by Klaproth to conn 

 from the, Persian Kohckaf, which signifies the mountain- 

 of Ckaf. By the Turks these mountains are called Ckaf- 

 thagi. 



The Adighc, applied by the Circassians to themselves, 

 is said to be derived from ado, which in Tartar language 

 corresponds to island, but a learned writer declares that. 

 the Circassians have no word for island in their language. 

 That this highland, however, had once the appearance of 

 an island, there can be no doubt, for there is incontestable 

 evidence that the Caspian, Black and Azoft" seas were 

 formerly one, while the Ural lake can be considered as 

 only a fraction of the former. The whole triangle between 

 the Don and the Volga, with the Caucasus for its base, 

 is a low, saline, sandy plain, covered with shells and other 

 evidences of its having been submerged, in which case it 

 must have connected the seas just named. 



This may account perhaps for the fable, that Prome- 

 theus, as king of the Scythians, had his country wasted by 

 a river named Eagle whose inundations he was unable to 

 prevent. 



There is a tradition in Asia, that when the earth was 

 given to Adam, the people anterior to him were exiled to 

 the Caucasian mountains. The same oriental tradition 

 has it, that colonies went from the Caucasus and spread 



