SCAECITY OF ROADS. 185 



inconceivable that neither the natives nor the 

 Russians should have taken the trouble to 

 make that road fit to travel upon. 



The Svans at Lachamul, believing me to 

 be a man of influence, instead of a mere 

 traveller, begged me to represent to the 

 government at Tiflis that for a thousand 

 roubles the road might be made such that 

 horses could travel on it ; that this thousand 

 roubles would confer inestimable benefits on 

 the whole of Svanetia, and that without this 

 road .the inhabitants, at any rate of Lachamul, 

 were often in sore dano;er of starvino-. 



Everytliing that the Svans require beyond 

 the coarsest of bread they must carry on their 

 own shoulders from Djuaria to Lachamul. 

 Salt, without which man cannot live, is one 

 of their heaviest burdens and sorest needs. 

 It is not too much to say that unloaded any 

 man must be in good condition, and at least a 

 fair mountaineer, with a steady head, to in 



