the character of the people who originated it. The variations of a story, therefore, are so many "Fraunhofer's lines" which reveal to us the nature of the intellectual medium through which it has passed. For these reasons the stories, fables and songs which are herewith presented must not be judged by their intrinsic value as literature alone, but by the light which they throw upon the life, tastes, temperament and artistic methods of a semi-barbarous but naturally gifted people. The space to which I am limited will enable me to give only one or two specimens from each of the three classes into which I have for convenience' sake divided Caucasian literature. I will begin with one of the shortest of its popular tales, a humorous narrative entitled "The Hero Naznai." This story, in one form or another, is common to all branches of the Aryan family, but the mountaineers have so modified and improved it as to make it almost their own. It recites the adventures and achievements of a certain worthless coward who is made by the force of circumstances to appear a hero. _The Hero Naznai._--Listen! listen! There was and there was not. The fox lived with the hare in the fields, the bear lived with the wild-boar in the forest, and in the land of Daghestan there lived a hero, a scurvy fellow without brains or bravery. When he should have been in front he was behind; when he should have been behind he was in front; and if his wife only lifted the poker he hid himself behind the door. Oh, he was very brave! He was called "the hero Naznai." One night he went out of doors to get a drink: it was bright moonlight. Beside him, with a pitcher in her hand, stood his wife. Without his wife he never went out at night: he said, because he didn't like to leave her alone; she said, because he was afraid to go out of doors without her. "What a beautiful night!" exclaimed Naznai--"the very night for a raid."--"Look out!" cried his wife suddenly: "there's a wolf." Naznai, trembling with fear, ran and climbed up into a cart, almost breaking his neck in his haste. His wife led him into the house and said, "I am disgusted with your cowardice, and I am disgusted with you: leave my house this instant (the house belonged to her), or you shall never see another peaceful day: every God-given day, morning and evening, I will pound you with the poker." Naznai begged her to let him stay until daybreak. She consented. In the morning he slung his miserable old sabre over his shoulder and started. Walking and strolling along, he came to a place where some one had been eating fruit, and where there had gathered a great swarm of flies. Picking up a big flat stone, he clapped it down on the very spot, lifted it up, looked, and there lay exactly five hundred dead flies. Then he went on until he reached a certain town, where he inquired for a blacksmith. Having found one, he ordered him to cut on the blade of his sabre this inscription: "The hero Naznai, killer of five hundred at a blow."