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PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 231
enter Ciicassia, " you are at once agreeably impressed with
the decided improvement in the ajypearance of the popidation^
the agriculture, and the beauty of their flocks and
herds*." With respect to Dioscurias. we are informed, that
" the memory of its ancient name is still preserved in the pres-
ent appellation of Iskouriaht." Sir John Chardin, who visited
it and calls it Isgaour, commends its safety in summer as a road
for ships, but says that it is a complete desert, where he could
obtaui no provisions, the traders who anchor there being obUged
to construct temporary huts and booths of the boughs of trees
for their accommodation, whilst awaiting the arrival of the na-
tives of Mingrelia and Caucasust.
But, besides the general inference that the Coraxi occupied
part of the modern Circassia, we are able to determine their
abode with still greater precision, and even obtain some insight
into their distinctive characters as a nation.
At the south-eastern extremity of Chirkess, or Circassia, on
the northern declivity of Mount Elborus, and about the sources
of the Kuban, the ancient Hypanis, we find a mountain clan,
consistmg of rather more than 250 famiUes, which appeal's to
retain not only the manners and habits, but even the very
name of the Coraxi. Julius von Klaproth, to whom we are
principally indebted for our knowledge of them, calls them the
Caratshai*. From him we learn the following particulars respecting
their appearance, manners, and employments. They
* Travels in Circassia, &c. in 1835, by Edmund Spencer, Esq., vol. ii. p. 355.
Julius von Klaprotli, in the work quoted below, says, (p. 582.), that the wealth
of the Circassians consists principally in their sheep, from whose wool the woman
make coarse cloth and felt. In tiie summer they drive their sheep into the moun-
tains, but feed them under cover in winter, and at other times in the plains.
t Dr. Goodenough, in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. i. p. 1 1 0.
See also Major Rennell's Map of Western Asia.
t Cliardin's Travels, vol. i. p. 77. 108. of tlie English Translation. London, ''086.
§ Eeise in den Caucasus, cap. 24. The aullior thus spells the name in German
characters, Ckaratschai. Father Lamberti, a missionary from the Society of the
Propaganda at Naples, who remained twenty years in tliat part of Asia in the
seventeenth century, calls them " i Caraccioli," in which name we observe the
addition of an Italian termination. See his Relatione delia Colchide, hoggi delta
Mengrclia, Napoli, 1654, cap. 28. p. 196.