fig, olive (up to 1500 ft. above sea-level), chestnut,
apricot, apple, pear, plum, cherry, melon, tea (on the coast between
Sukhum-Kaleh and Batum), maize (yielding the staple food of the
inhabitants), wheat (up to 6000 ft.), potatoes, peas, currants, cotton,
rice, colza and tobacco. Before the Russian conquest the native
inhabitants of this region were Kabardians, Circassians (Adigheh) and
Abkhasians, also a Circassian race. But half a million of these people
being Mahommedans, and refusing to submit to the yoke of Christian
Russia, emigrated into Turkish territory between 1864 and 1878, and the
country where they had lived remained for the most part unoccupied until
after the beginning of the 20th century. Then, however, the Russian
government held out inducements to settlers, and these have been
responded to by Russians, Greeks, Armenians and Rumanians, but the
process of repeopling the long deserted territory is slow and difficult.
The coast-line is remarkably regular, there being no deep bays and few
seaports. The best accommodation that these latter afford consists of
more or less open roadsteads, e.g. Novo-rossiysk, Gelenjik, Anapa,
Sukhum-Kaleh, Poti and Batum. Along the coast a string of summer bathing
resorts is springing up similar to those that dot the south-east coast
of the Crimea. The most promising of these little seaside places are
Anapa, Gelenjik and Gagry.

2. MIDDLE CAUCASUS: (a) _Western Half._--This sub-section, with a length
of 200 m., reaches from Mount Elbruz to Kasbek and the Pass of Darial.
It contains the loftiest summits of the entire range, fully a dozen
exceeding Mont Blanc in altitude (see table below).

_List of Peaks in the west central Caucasus, with their altitudes,
names and dates of mountaineers who have climbed them._

+--------------------+--------+------------------------------------------+----+
| Name of Peak. |Altitude| By whom ascended. |Date|
| |in Feet.| | |
+--------------------+--------+------------------------------------------+----+
|Elbruz, E. peak | 18,345 |D.W. Freshfield, A.W. Moore and C. Tucker |1868|
|Elbruz, W. peak | 18,465 |F.C. Grove, H. Walker and F. Gardiner |1874|
| " " | " |H. Woolley |1889|
|Donguz-orun | 14,600 |G. Merzbacher and L. Purtscheller |1890|
| "