ITS ASPECT THEN AND NOW. 281 



mountain. This remarkable spectacle of a modern 

 civilized centre in the midst of the wilderness has 

 made Kedabeg a regular place of pilgrimage for the 

 inhabitants of the country as far as the interior of 

 Persia. When I visited it for the first time, the ap- 

 pearance of Kedabeg was certainly a very different 

 one. Except the wooden dwelling-house of the managers, 

 which struck the eye through its position on a com- 

 manding height, onlv a few smelting furnaces and 



o o <; O 



administration buildings were visible. The workmen's 

 dwellings were only distinguishable by wreaths of 

 smoke on the mountain slopes, for they all consisted 

 of caves. 



Caves serve in eastern Caucasia almost exclusively 

 for dwellings. They are properly speaking wooden 

 houses, which are built in a pit, and covered over 

 with a layer of earth a yard in thickness, so that the 

 whole looks like a mole-hill. In the middle of the 

 roof a chimney peeps out, which affords an exit for 

 the smoke from the one room, and is at the same 

 time the only admitter of light beside the entrance. 

 For the rest such caves are sometimes quite elegantly 

 made. In a visit, which, in company with my brother 

 and the smelting director, I paid to a neighbouring 

 "prince" so the larger landed proprietors of the 



district are called we were introduced into a 



tolerably spacious saloon-like room, the floor of which 

 was covered, with handsome carpets, whilst the in- 

 terior partitions were formed of Persian carpets sus- 

 pended after the manner of side-scenes. Opposite 



