CAUCASIA AND ITS PEOPLES 43 



coast the declivities sink in exhausted effort, until, 

 with a final spurt at maintaining a barrier, the cliffs 

 fall precipitously into the sea. 



Far away to the westward in its third section, on 

 the coast of the Black Sea, the mountain chain lies 

 low. A group of tree-clothed hills undulates from 

 Taman, on the Azov, to Gagri, where the elevation in- 

 creases, and from the vicinity of Soukoum-Kaleh until 

 it links up with the central group the rampart of 

 majestic heights maintains a persistent altitude which 

 never sinks below 8000 feet, and often rises far above. 



The greatest width of the region, about 120 miles, 

 is attained in Daghestan, " the mountain land," a 

 sombre, unsmiling country of deep gorges and sharp 

 slopes, which lies between an encircling spur domin- 

 ated by many fine glacier-bearing peaks, thrown off 

 from the main chain. 



The greatest length of the Caucasus from end to 

 end, taking it from Taman on the Azov to Apsheron, a 

 peninsula on the Caspian, is usually given as eight 

 hundred miles, but only half this length is precipitously 

 mountainous. Geographers quibble furiously together 

 as to exact measurements ; of course they wouldn't be 

 real geographers if they didn't. Like historians they 

 exist mainly for the smashing of theories. Anything 

 between six hundred and eight hundred miles will do 

 very well for unknowledgable you and me. 



No two etymologists can agree as to the precise 

 signification of the name " Caucasus " either. Certain 

 it is that for many centuries the word was applied to 

 the range alone, and now the designation is bestowed 



