Savage Sritnetia. By Clive Phillips-Wolley, F.R.G.S. (Bentley.) —Travels written by
sportsmen rarely interest us ; the " kill, kill!" motive to which they are due being not only unsympathetic, but repulsive. This consideration apart, and with the farther ex- ception of a horrid description of cruelty practised on wolves—and not even by implication condemned by the writer---we can commend this book as lively, interesting, and, in a superficial way, instructive. We know little of the tribes who inhabit " the dreadful Caucasus," and Mr. Phillips-Wolley's book gives us a glimpse of them. It is not a pleasant glimpse, on the whole, although the Scans possess one virtue—honesty in small things. According to the author, it would seem a virtuous act to any native of Mookmer to carry off a flock of sheep from Radcha, leaving the shepherds dead at the foot of the pass ; but the travellers never had any single thing stolen during the whole time they were in Svanetia. The gist of the writer's observations upon the people of a beautiful land, full of grandeur and sublimity, is in the following passage :— " Morality amongst the women is a thing little known in the Caucasus, and less likely to be met with in Svinetia than elsewhere. The Scans have no games, no mental culture, to all intents and pur- poses no religion, no houses better than dens ; they don't work much when they can, and there are at least nine months of the year when they cannot work if they would. They have no strong drinks, and tobacco is hard to get, so that except for their hunting, they can only fill up their time by sleeping, indiscriminate love-making, and the blood-feuds consequent thereon. A man who has had no share in a blood-feud is as little thought of as an unscarred student at Heidelberg, and they are perfectly careless of the wrath of Russia, consequent on any fatal results from their favourite pastime, well. knowing that it would not be worth the while of the Government to pursue a single Svan in his native mountains, and perfectly useless even if attempted."
Savage Sollnetia, indeed !
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