■Miiiiilliffl 



Photo from George Kennau 



THE TOWKRS AT PANSHETI 



Along the Georgia military road, through the pass of Dariel, are isolited villages, each 

 with its watch-towers like th^se shown in the picture. In former times constant watch was 

 kept from these towers for the enemy who might at any moment come down the pass. 



ber, and two-thirds of them are to be 

 found in the province of Daghestan, at 

 the eastern end of the range, where the 

 ethnological diversity of the population 

 is most marked. So circumscribed and 

 clearly defined are the geographical lim- 

 its of many Caucasian languages that in 

 some parts of Daghestan it is possible to 

 ride through three or four widely differ- 

 ent linguistic areas in a single day. 



Languages spoken by only 12 or 15 

 settlements are comparatively common ; 

 and on the headwaters of the Andiski 

 Koisu, in southwestern Daghestan, there 

 is an isolated village of 50 or 60 houses — 

 the aoul of Innookh — which has a lan- 

 guage of its own, not spoken or under- 

 stood by any other part of the whole 

 Caucasian population. 



Prior to the Russian conquest none of 

 these mountain languages had ever been 

 written, but the early introduction of 

 Arabic supplied to a great extent this 

 deficiency. Almost every settlement had 



its mullah, or kadi, whose religious or 

 judicial duties made it necessary for him 

 to read and write the language of the 

 Koran, and when called upon to do so 

 he acted for his fellow-villagers in the 

 capacity of amanuensis or scribe. 



After the conquest the eminent Rus- 

 sian philologist, General Usler, invented 

 alphabets and compiled grammars for 

 six or eight of the principal Caucasian 

 languages, and these are now taught in 

 the government schools established under 

 the auspices of the mountain adminis- 

 tration at Vladikavkaz, Timour Khan 

 Shoura, and Groznoi. 



the: polickman supplants the: 



PATRIARCH 



In government the Caucasian high- 

 landers before the Russian conquest ac- 

 knowledged no general head, each sepa- 

 rate tribe or community having devel- 

 oped for itself such system of polity as 

 was most in accordance with the needs 



1094 



