394 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



provinces was compiled by a Georgian chronicler, and 

 translated by Klaproth, it may not be uninteresting, 

 in conclusion, to glance cursorily at the history of this 

 part of the coast of Circassia and Abkhasia, as gath- 

 ered from that record and the pages of Montpereux. 



It is satisfactory to find that, according to these 

 traditions, no obscurity hangs over the early portion 

 of the history of these countries. They carry us 

 boldly back to the Flood, and decide that Togarmah, 

 who, it will be remembered, was a great-grandson of 

 Noah, after the confusion of tongues consequent on 

 the building of the Tower of Babel, established him- 

 self in Armenia, but whose possessions extended to 

 the banks of the Kuban. He divided his territory 

 between his eight sons, and Abkhasia was included 

 in the portion of the eighth, Egros. These princes 

 owed allegiance to Nimrod, then, in the language of 

 the chronicle, " the first king among the inhabitants 

 of the earth." At the instigation of the elder brother 

 they revolted, and the mighty hunter fell by his 

 hand. This prince, whose name was Hhaos, then 

 became king over his brothers, and his rule was 

 paramount in Caucasia and Armenia. 



It is precisely at this epoch that the Argonautic 

 expedition is placed by the Greeks, the reputed origin 

 of those colonies which sprung up along the eastern 

 shores of the Black Sea, in the country then called 

 Colchis, and which includes Mingrelia and the greater 

 part of Abkhasia, In the subsequent wars between 



