e originated
west of the Mississippi River. I heard one night in a lonely
mountain-village in the Eastern Caucasus from the lips of a Daghestan
mountaineer a humorous story which had been told me less than a year
before by a student of the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, and
which I had supposed to be an invention of the mirth-loving sophomores of
that institution.

But the literature which the Caucasian mountaineers have inherited, and
which they share with all the Semitic and Indo-European races, is not so
deserving of notice as the literature which they have themselves
invented--the stories, songs, anecdotes and burlesques which bear the
peculiar impress of their own character. I shall endeavor, therefore, in
giving specimens of Caucasian folk-lore, to confine myself to stories,
songs and proverbs which are peculiar to the mountaineers themselves, or
which have been worked over and modified to accord with Caucasian tastes
and standards. It will be seen that I use the word "literature" in the
widest possible sense, to include not only what is commonly called
folk-lore, but also oaths, greetings, speeches, prayers and all other
forms of mental expression which in anyway illustrate character.

The translations which I shall give have all been made from the original
tongues through the Russian. Although I visited the Caucasus in 1870, and
rode hundreds of miles on horseback through its wild gloomy ravines,
familiarizing myself with the life and customs of its people, I did not
acquire any of the mountain-languages so that I could translate from them
directly; neither did I personally collect the proverbs, stories and songs
which I here present. I am indebted for most of them to General Usler, to
Prince Djordjadze--with whom I crossed Daghestan--and to the Russian
mountain administration at Tiflis. All that I have done is to translate
them from the Russian, and set them in order, with such comments and
explanatory notes as they seem to require and as my Caucasian experience
enables me to furnish.

I will begin with Caucasian greetings and curses. The etiquette of
salutation in the Caucasus is extremely elaborate and ceremonious. It does
not by any means satisfy all the requirements of perfect courtesy to ask a
mountaineer how he is, or how his health is, or how he does. You must
inquire minutely into the details of his domestic economy, manifest the
liveliest interest in the growth of his crops and the welfare