TRADITIONARY ACCOUNTS OF CAUCASUS. 129 
doom of their being left to bleach on that unsheltered rock for 
ever, should never be reversed. So far, the judgment of the 
spirits of the mountain ! But it is more credibly believed by the 
persons who told me the story, that the real object of the expe¬ 
dition, which set forth under this mask, was to reconnoitre 
ground for the establishment of some good positions in the 
mountains. 
This quarter of the globe has justly been styled the cradle of 
mankind; and the long recollections of the land of their origin, 
to be found amongst the people of countries the most distant, 
even in their nursery tales, might be one minor proof, of all the 
dispersed families of the earth having sprung from this patri¬ 
archal home. From the earliest times, we find the regions 
between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, to be the noted theatre 
of the most heroic and marvellous actions. Events are recorded, 
in which not men only, but preternatural and supernatural 
beings played conspicuous parts. In the east, and in the west, 
we hear and read of the mountains of Caucasus, and their sur¬ 
rounding countries ; in history, in fable, and in poets’ dreams. 
Medea prepared her magic spells in their vicinity; and, aided 
by ethereal agents, renewed the decayed forms of age to all the 
freshness of youth and beauty. Even now the most romantic 
and extravagant tales are told by the natives of the country, of 
these airy inhabitants of the heights. Powerful genii or demons, 
with their attendant benign or evil spirits, they say, still 
hold their courts amongst the ices of Kasibeck, the snows of 
Elborus, and the caverned summits of the less-towering Cau¬ 
casus ; and so great is the terror amongst some of the people of 
the valleys, no bribe could induce them, by attempting to ascend, 
11 _vol. 1 . s i : 
