VOYAGE AND ARRIVAL 37 



worn by the Caucasian upper classes so — that a tyro 

 can differentiate between the various ranks at all. 



The Tscherkess dress — Tscherkess is the Russian 

 name for the Adighe or Circassian tribe — has become 

 the general costume all over the Caucasus, and where 

 you don't get the exact thing you find adaptations. 

 The Russians wear it themselves and have bestowed it 

 on the Cossacks. The main feature of the kit is the 

 tscherkesska, a long coUarless coat, cut V-shape 

 from neck to waist, where it is secured by hooks and 

 eyes. It is usually fashioned from a strong good 

 woollen cloth of one colour. Next comes the beschmet, 

 a sort of secondary robe-coat, equally long, made with 

 a high straight collar-band, and hooked to the waist. 

 This garment is of thinner stuff, cotton perhaps, or a 

 mixture of silk and cotton. With your real dandy the 

 parts which show, such as the open V-piece, the 

 turning-back portions of the sleeves — both these coats 

 have immensely long sleeves — and the collar-band, 

 are of silk, often handsomely embroidered. The 

 tscherkesska has no pockets, merely sHts, through 

 which the capacious hold-alls provided in the beschmet 

 may be reached. 



Beneath all this impedimenta — if you are an in- 

 vestigator, and would fathom everything — come what 

 is usually described as " tight, evenly-fitting trousers 

 of a dark material." But the tightness and evenness of 

 fit are so rarely there that they may be dismissed as an 

 ideal hardly ever realized. In fact, all the Caucasian 

 trousers I saw resemble more than anything the shape- 

 less trouser-knickerbockers which I call " Windermere 



