AVALANCHES IN THE CAUCASUS. 
145 
host orders one of his daughters to do the honours of his re¬ 
ception, to take care of his horse and baggage, to prepare his 
meals, and, when night comes on, to share his bed. The refusal 
of the latter part of the entertainment, would be considered as a 
great affront to the young lady and her father. The natives of 
a part of Lapland, not very far from Torneo, have a similar cus¬ 
tom ; but then it is the wife of the host, whom he delivers into 
the bosom of his guest; and she remains with the stranger, as his 
exclusive property, during the whole of his sojourn under her 
husband’s roof. This fact I learnt while I was in that part of 
the world, during the months of December and January, in the 
severe winter of 1812-13. 
Some other circumstances, besides these curious anomalies 
in domestic arrangements, reminded me, here, in the East, of 
that winter in the North, where the common inclemencies of 
that dreary season, were augmented to a fury and a terror, which 
swept the armies of the South before them, like the waves of 
the sea under atempest. But here, amongst the mountains, and the 
valleys of Caucasus, in the winter of 1817, there were no armies 
of a second Xerxes to level with the dust; only a few wandering 
travellers, and the villages where they lodged, were fated to fall 
under the weight of the present calamities of the season. The 
news of one of these disasters, arrived at Tiflis a short time be¬ 
fore I left it. The Governor-general had already intimated some 
alarm, while remarking on the more than ordinary heavy rains, 
which continued to impede my excursions round the city, lest 
their effects should be of still more mischievous consequence to 
the country at large. He told me that, whenever the wet season 
sets in early, and with violence, at Tiflis, the snow is at the same 
time falling deeply on the higher regions of the Caucasus; and 
VOL. i. 
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