Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-02
RUSSIA'S SOUTH PLAINS
GHOSTS OF THE OLD NATIONS,
GLOOMY AND TERRIBLE.
The Giant Range Of the Caucasus
Passes at Great Height-Hostile
Mountain Tribes.
From the London News.

From the London News
The traveller who should seek to cross
from the southern plains Of Russia over into
Persia or Arabia by the land between the
Caspian and the Black seas would find HIM
self confronted by sight which for gloom
and terror has hardly any equal In the
world. Rising sheer from the vast arid
plain. like a great foam-crested btflow about
to break on a desolate beach, a biliow ten
thousand feet high and eight hundred miles
long, the snow-capped Caucasus stretches
across from sea to sea with a dreadful,
threatening savage majesty of mien. It's
peaks are not SO high as many of the Alps
it has not the projecting spurs and isolated
craggy heights whose groupings give new
and beautiful views at every step. 1t Is just
an immense mountain chain, an unbro "en
fold or crease on the earths surface.
Though the Alps have higher peaks, the
lowest pass across the Caucasus Is nearly
double the height of the Alpine crossing
places. The Caucasus has no lakes. only
turbid muddy rivers flowing from the Ice
fields of dts central ridge. Even these are
missing In the east, where the ridge lowers
toward the Caspian.
Ghosts of Bygone Races.
Amid the Alpine heights of Europe we
bound Businesses that have marked strug-
giles that have turned the tide of empire
and won the liberties Of race. Still in our
Imagination the crags echo to the sound of
clarion and of drum. Like moving forests
the pixies advance along the mountain path.
the hero scales the castle wall.
But the terror and desolation of the
Caucasus forever kept apart the people to
the north and south. On the one hand
civilizations rose and fell-the Babyionian
the Assyrian, the Greek, the Egyptian, the
Roman, the republics of the middle ages
but to the north the great plains were ever
inhabited by the wild, lawless nomads. And
so from the very beginnings of time the
Caucasus has stayed the human tide. and
as conquering races swept all before them
below, the weak, the peaceab,e, the unit
have been driven higher and higher into
inaccessible gorges and wild, bog-covered
valleys
A strange mixture of races, dating back
from immemorable antiquity. has been
washed up like surf on to the slopes of
the Avar, the Tush, belong to races that
persisted before Europe was discovered
Seven languages are spoken in the eau
casus, each unintelligible to the tribes
using the rest. Some of them related
to the early tongues of Europe, others have
no known affinities. and seem to be among
the languages Of Babel that did not catch
on" Here amid these mountains we have
gone under in the world-Struggle. There
may we'll be tribesmen here whose ancestor
was driven high by the flood, and settled
within sight of Ararat and his cousin Noah.
There are still tribes who array themselves
in helmets and chain armor and carry
spears like those of three thousand years
ago. Others have strange ritual practices
that have come down from the dawn of the
world, mingling their pagan rites with wor-
ship of the Christ God" and the angels OF
the river, the forest and the mountain
They have blood feuds which go on for gen.
erations, like those of Corsica in the past.
How Russia Took the Caucasus.
1t is a mistake to suppose that Russia took
the Caucasus by a general warlike move
ment There was no need. Divided by relig-
ion into Christians, Mohammedans and pa
gans, divided by languages which made
them mutually unintelligible-surely If Es-
peranto Is needed anywhere 1t Is there-the
tribes of this strange museum Of bygone
races could take no united action.
Throughout the first three-quarters of the
nineteenth century Russia was employed
in absorbing the Caucasus piece by piece.
Only two of the Caucasian races made any
thing like strong resistance. In the east a
Mohammedan prophet, Shamyl or the Avar
stock which overran a great part of
Europe in the seventh century, and was
only finally conquered by Charlemagne, led
the Lesghians of Daghestan in religious
war against Russia. Crafty. daring and
fertile in resource, occupying mountain
slopes cut by impossible gorgeS, Shamyl
was believed by his followers to have a
charmed life. Only when the Russians built
great forts and military roads, and gradu-
ally inclosed him, at enormous expense, did
Shamyl surrender at his castle of Gunib
in 1859 He passed some years of honorable
captivity near Moscow, and was then al
lowed as a devout Mohammedan to end his
days in peace at Mecca.
emf - fbn ST. nft ha Ta1a
kesses, or Circassians, who opposed Russia
in the western section of the Caucasus The
Circassians were hardly the peaceable race
of whose golden-haired captive princesses
in the harems of the east our boyish dreams
were full. Warlike, splendid horsemen and
marksmen, they lived almost entirely by
pillage In 1864 they submitted, and Rus
STA, knowing them to be unmanageable in
coming down into the plains or emigrating
into Turkish territory. They chose the lat
ter course, and were welcomed by the sud
tan. but as his ships arrived at the Black
sea ports to meet them long after the prop
er time large numbers persisted Of hard
ship and disease. Some were settled in Ar
msaia. others in Bulgaria. others in various
parts Of Asia Minor, and wherever they
went there has been trouble since.
The intermediate tribes between the
Tcherkesses and the Leshgians, both Tartar
and>Christian. would not assist Shamyl, and
made practically no fight. A period Of ex-
periments in colonization followed, frugal,
careful, trading Armenians were settled in
the mountain country. and all seemed going
on peacefully when Prince Galitzin con-
ceived the idea of setting the Tartars to
keep the Armenian political agitators in or
der and thus provoked discord which has
had disastrous consequences since and
threatens now to throw the whole region
into revolutionary flame.
Homobonus.
From the London Chronicle.