...and to this day the rare traveller who knows the language and customs even of the worst of the tribes is safer amongst them than in the neighbouring Cossack settlements.
It is not, in the long run, the battles and sieges that signify, but the permanent effect on the human race of the changes they help to bring about.
It may be said without exaggeration that the mountains made the men; and the men in return fought with passionate courage and energy in defence of their beloved mountains, in whose fastnesses, indeed,...
As long as the forest stood the Tchetchens were unconquerable... and it is literally the fact that they were beaten in the long run not by the sword but by the axe.
Hospitality, as with all the mountain tribes, was - and is still - a most sacred duty; and the man who would slay a chance-met traveller without pity or remorse for the sake of trifling gain, would la...