OSSETE CHRISTIANITY. 455 



to Christianity. This was easily accomplished with a 

 people indifferent about religious matters, especially as a 

 linen shirt and a silver cross were given to every Ossete 

 who underwent baptism. The pious zeal of the new con- 

 verts was greatly excited by these means, and there was no 

 end to the number of neophytes who aspired to the rite of 

 baptism, till at length it came to pass that one immersion 

 was not reckoned sufficient, and that many Ossetes, in order 

 to become genuine Christians, and at the same time the 

 owners of a respectdble amount of linen, received the sacra- 

 ment five or six times following.' He adds : ' If the 

 Russian Government had permitted other Christian con- 

 fessions to hold intercourse with the mountaineers of the 

 Caucasus, their Christianity might possibly have been 

 something better than " sounding brass and a tinkling 

 cynibal." ' 



One of the peculiarities of the country is that the 

 superiority of the Christian over the Mahommedan popu- 

 lation, commonly seen in Syria, is entirely reversed. In 

 the Caucasus the traveller will be compelled to contrast 

 the truthfulness, industry, and courteous hospitality of the 

 Mahommedans north of the chain with the lying, indolence, 

 and churlishness of the Christians on the south. The 

 Georgian races who inhabit the upper valleys of Mingrelia 

 are, as a rule, too lazy to take advantage of the rich natural 

 gifts of the country they inhabit ; they are greedy of ill- 

 gotten gain, and careless of life in its pursuit. This con- 

 clusion as to their character is the result of our own 

 experience, but it is confirmed by that of other travellers, 

 even from remote times. Thus Chardin, writing nearly 

 200 years ago, says : ' The women of Mingrelia are 

 extremely civil, but otherwise the wickedest in the world, — 

 haughty, furious, perfidious, deceitful, cruel, and imj)udent 

 — so that there is no sort of wickedness they will not put in 

 execution. The men are endowed with all these mischie- 



