ISOLATION OF VILLAGERS. 81 



where we now were, in Mookmer, neither 

 wheat nor wine nor tobacco, nor any other 

 thing which can make gLad the heart of man, 

 can be induced to grow. So there are no 

 traders to introduce civilisation or spread the 

 news. Once in Lachmul I met a pedlar from 

 far-away Djuaria, and he, so the people said, 

 was the only merchant of any sort who 

 visited them. 



I found villagers in my travels who had 

 hardly heard the rumour yet that the late 

 Czar had been foully murdered, and refused 

 to believe that another Czar already filled his 

 place. Throughout Svanetia the villages are 

 small and for the most part far away from 

 each other ; in many cases so placed that in 

 ' winter they become isolated, not only from 

 the rest of the world but from each other also. 

 As for the influences of religion upon the people 

 they are limited in the extreme, and schools 

 they have none. 



VOL. II. G 



