50 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



" Their deeds are ended, like a dream of night, 

 With them their golden age has ended too." 



Fifty years ago national patriotism among the 

 Georgians was not the fetish it is to-day. " Georgia is 

 a light-hearted slave," wrote Dumas pere, " gay even 

 in servitude." Nous avons change tout cela ! As no 

 person or nation can be happy without a grievance, 

 Georgia has found one in the fact that the once-welcome 

 Russian is there at all. Newspapers, published in 

 Georgian, foster old traditions, reformers and preachers 

 encourage the gradual drawing away from Russian- 

 izing influences. A virile literature has sprung up, a 

 school of romanticism and historical heroics, inspired 

 by the celebrated Prince Ilia Tchavtchavadye, orator, 

 poet, patriot, politician, who was assassinated at Tifiis 

 in 1907. To-day the greatest lyricist of the Georgian 

 race is Akaki Tsereteli, another prince, and a prince of 

 poets. 



Amid the sierras of the central highlands of the 

 Caucasian chain lies Ossetia, the territory of a tribe 

 now highly civilized as regards its better classes, many 

 of whom hold high positions in the civil and mihtary 

 service of Russia. The Muscovite name for their one- 

 time vigorous opponents is " Gentlemen of the Moun- 

 tains." 



Busy Queen Thamara, whose second husband was 

 an Ossete, converted the tribe to Christianity, but the 

 converted ones are backsliders to-day, and the majority 

 profess Mahommedanism, whilst many are frankly 

 pagan. 



Professor Kovalevsky has given us a fine descrip- 



