150 
THE CAUCASUS. 
limit of the Russian frontier. Beyond that I must look for 
other guards; and, I doubted not, for paths of still more un¬ 
tamed wildness; tracks, not roads, begirt with banditti, savage 
as their mountain fastnesses. 
Travellers are certainly indebted to Russia’s possession of 
Georgia for the means which leads them in comparative security 
from the banks of the Don to the farthest shores of the Kur. 
And, indeed, all speculative minds, who are curious in the 
great labyrinths of nature, must date to his Imperial Majesty’s 
military posts and other establishments in that province, the 
daily accumulating knowledge respecting Caucasus and its num¬ 
berless tribes, which every succeeding traveller brings from that 
remote part of the world to the learned in Europe. It is from 
the result of such speculations, and such facilities, that the 
anatomy, (if I may be allowed the term,) of this colossus of 
nature has been made known to us. Though so illustrious a 
subject in ancient history, from the importance of its passes, and 
the battles fought to maintain them, by Greek, and Roman, 
with the native princes; yet the ancient historians had but a 
very confused, and therefore imperfect knowledge of the Cau¬ 
casus ; sometimes tracing their lines in the visions of poesy, 
and, at others, confounding those which the accounts of military 
or other travellers had rendered more distinct, with the widely 
spreading branches of Mount Taurus. 
But I shall here sketch a general idea of the whole body of 
this stupendous mountain-world, to which the name of Caucasus 
properly belongs. It is collected from authorities that inade 
their observations on the spot, and verified to my complete 
satisfaction, by the opportunities afforded me to go over much 
of the ground myself, where I derived nearly the same result 
