1136 



THE NATIOXAL GEOGRAPHIC ^lAGAZIXE 



methods which were apparently sur- 

 vivals from the early ages of the world's 

 history. 



HABITS AND CUSTOMS SURVIVING I?ROM 



KARLY CHAPTERS OF THE 



world's HISTORY 



In the houses where we slept, the port- 

 holes which served as windows had nei- 

 ther sashes nor glass. Against some of 

 the doors were nailed the bones and 

 shriveled remains of lopped human 

 hands, the ghastly trophies of battle or 

 "blood-revenge. Meals were eaten on the 

 floor from a common dish or kettle, out 

 of which every man took his portion 

 with a sharpened pine splinter or a 

 wooden spoon. Fruit was offered to us 

 on huge brass or copper trays bearing 

 Latin inscriptions in old Gothic letters 

 or verses from the Koran in Arabic. 

 Grain was threshed by driving over it a 

 yoke of oxen attached to a wooden to- 

 boggan, whose lower surface was stud- 

 ded with sharp-edged fragments of 

 -quartz. 



Men accused of crimes were tried by 

 the ordeal or cleared themselves by com- 

 purgation. Homicide was restrained only 

 by the laws of the vendetta. A murderer 

 w^ho wished to make peace with his blood- 

 seekers let his hair grow long, put on a 

 w^hite shroud, went with uncovered head 

 to the relatives of the man whom he had 

 k:illed, presented them with an unsheathed 

 dagger, holding it by the point, and took 

 the desperate chance of life or death. 

 Forgiven murderers became members, by 

 adoption, of the clans to which their 

 victims had belonged. 



A man who had a quarrel with his 

 neighbor wrapped himself in a burial 

 shroud and went in person to settle it, 

 carrying in his hand money to pay a 

 priest for reading prayers over a grave ; 

 and the dead were lamented with keen- 

 ing, borne to the village cemetery on 

 ladders, and buried with Arabic prayers 

 in their hand, to be given to the angel 

 who should awaken them on the morning 

 of the resurrection. 



In short, the men whose acquaintance 

 we made and whose customs we ob- 

 served in the aouls of central and south- 

 ern Daghestan lived, acted, and died in 



much the same way perhaps that our 

 own ancestors lived, acted, and died on 

 the plains of Asia or in the forests of 

 Europe in the forgotten years of the re- 

 mote past. 



ON ONE OE THE GABEES O:^ THE WORED's 

 ROOF 



On the 3d of October we entered the 

 high trough between the snowy range 

 and the main range, spent the night in 

 the Daghestan village of Bezheeta, at an 

 elevation of 8,000 or 9,000 feet, and 

 about the middle of the next forenoon 

 began the ascent of the gigantic ridge 

 which forms the backbone of the eastern 

 Caucasus and which separates Daghestan 

 from the valley of Georgia. 



We started up the mountain in zigzags, 

 following as nearly as possible the track 

 of a small but rapid stream which came 

 rushing down from a rudimentary glacier 

 1,000 feet above. Old, hardened snow 

 soon made its appearance, the noise of the 

 torrent ceased, and we entered a gray 

 canopy of clouds, which hid everything 

 from sight except the neve over which 

 we rode. For an hour or two we climbed 

 steadily upward, enveloped constantly in 

 clouds and hearing nothing but the 

 crunching of snow under our horses' 

 feet. 



Suddenly a cold, piercing wind began 

 to blow in our faces. We had reached 

 the summit, 12,000 feet above the sea, 

 and the wind came from the other side 

 of the range. The clouds, however, still 

 hid everything from sight, and the mist, 

 wind, and low temperature made it un- 

 comfortable to stay on the summit long. 



A VISION OE THE PEAIN 



Just before we began our descent, 

 however, the gray ocean of vapor sud- 

 denly opened beneath us, and there, 12,- 

 000 feet below, lay the beautiful semi- 

 tropical valley of Georgia, like a huge 

 colored map framed in clouds. Scores 

 of glittering streams, like shining silver 

 threads, lay stretched across the broad 

 expanse of meadow land which sloped 

 away from the base of the mountains ; 

 orchards, vineyards, and olive groves di- 

 versified it here and there with patches 

 of darker green, and far away in the 



