ABSTRACT
I TOOK my leave of Lavrenti at dawn and set out for Pasanaour. A man with an ox-dray picked me up two miles from the priest's dwelling, and carried me ten miles at a pace slower than that of walking. The driver belonged to a tribe dwelling on the Black Aragva, consisting of about thirty thousand souls with a quite alien language and distinct customs, the Khevsurs. For one thing, they take their wives for a year on probation before marrying them. This man spoke no Russian, but a Georgian boy who was also being carried told me about him and his people. He pointed out how dirty he was, and showed a scar on his cheek and another on his wrist from knife wounds. The Khevsurs are a very quarrelsome tribe, and it is difficult to find a single grown man who has never been wounded. They live by shepherding and by wattle-making. Wattle is a very important manufacture in the Caucasus; houses and fences are made of it, and it is used for the embankments of the rivers. Georgian Wome https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315828145/3ae213e6-a628-4039-a865-d39b797b02f1/content/fig21_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
