CAUCASIA AND ITS PEOPLES 55 



sessing many pronounced Mahommedan traits. They 

 shave their heads, are polygamists, and, a la Moslem, 

 won't touch pork. 



The Khevsurs — Khevi, from which their name is 

 derived, is a Georgian word, and means " valley " — 

 still believe in the most mysterious deities, all very 

 poetical and fantastical ; gods of the East and West, a 

 god of gods, a little god, an oak tree god, a wind 

 spirit, and a thunder controller. 



Scattered everywhere we find the Tatar. The exact 

 genealogy of these people ethnologists are puzzled to 

 define, but they are undoubtedly of Turkish extrac- 

 tion. All are Mahommedans, and a hard-working race 

 of carriers and traders, speaking a dialect of Turk- 

 ish, which is very generally spoken throughout the 

 Caucasus. The lower-class Russian has a befogging 

 habit of describing all Moslems indiscriminately as 

 Tatars. 



The one relaxation of the Tatar tribes, that of 

 brigandage, is passing from them. Civilization has 

 driven the highwayman far afield, and he no longer 

 waits for you in the great waste places outside Tiflis. 

 To the very confines of the Tsar's provinces the gallant 

 has receded. Very soon he will overbalance, and, falling 

 into Persia or Turke}', be lost to sight. R.I. P. He 

 was " such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit." 



The Cossack hordes — Russia's pioneers — have occu- 

 pied the northern frontiers of the mountains since the 

 reign of Peter the Great. The far northern steppes are 

 occupied by the Nogais, Tatarized Mongolians. The 

 Kalmucks, a tribe of Mongolian descent, are to be met 



