DIFFICULTY OF WORKING. JOURNEY TO THE CAUCASUS. 263 



young Prussian miner and metallurgist, Dr. Bernoulli. 

 It soon however became apparent that considerable 

 difficulties would have to be overcome and large 

 sums of money spent, before the working could be 

 remunerative. This is intelligible when one considers 

 that the mine is situated about 400 miles distant 

 from the Black Sea and at that time was connected 

 with it neither by railways nor regular roads, that 

 all the material required for the mine and the pro- 

 jected copper smeltery, even to the fire -proof bricks, 

 of which there were then none in the Caucasus, had 

 to be brought from Europe, and that for the life of 

 a European colony in this paradisiacal waste, in which 

 earth -caves served for human habitations, all the 

 conditions of civilization had first to be created. 



No wonder that the amount of money which the 

 mine swallowed up was great beyond all expectation, 

 so that the question soon became urgent for us brothers, 

 whether we should continue or give up the under- 

 taking. To decide the matter I resolved in the autumn 

 of 1865 to journey myself to the Caucasus, and learn 

 the state of affairs by actual observation. I count 

 this Caucasian journey among the most agreeable 

 memories of my life. 1 had always felt a secret 

 yearning towards the primitive seats of human cul- 

 ture, and Bodenstedt's glowing descriptions of the 

 luxuriant Caucasian nature had directed this yearning 

 towards the Caucasus and long ago had excited in me 

 the wish to know it. There was the further reason for 

 the journey that I was mentally and bodily very much 



