LESGHIANS, or Lesghis (from the Persian Lelcsi, called Leki by the Grusinians or Georgians, Armenians, and Ossetians), a number of tribes in the Caucasus forming along with the Tchetchenians (about 165,000) the East Caucasus group, and spreading southward over the borders of Daghestan, the country which they have occupied from time immemorial, into the Transcaucasian circles Kuba, Shemakha, Nukha, and Sakataly. They are mentioned as Λτ)χαι by Strabo and Plutarch along with the Γi}λαι (perhaps the modern Galgai, a Tchetchenian tribe), and their name occurs with great frequency in the old chronicles of the Georgians, whose territory was exposed to their raids for centuries, until through the fall of Shamyl they were brought under subjection to Russia. Moses of Chorene mentions a battle in the reign of the Armenian King Baba (370-377 A.D.), in which Shagir, king of the Lekiaus, was slain. Among the Lesghians the chief place, both on account of numbers and importance, is due to the Avars (155,194) and the closely related Andians (35,511), to whom may be attached the Dido (9074) and a number of small tribes, confined to a few villages or even to one, and speaking different though intimately connected languages. The Avars, extending from the Sulak and the Kumyk steppe right through Daghestan to the Alasan in the Sakataly circle, were once the dominant people as their language is still the dominant language of all this district. Their neighbours the Kasimukhians (35,139), who call themselves Lakians, have a language of their own, and are well known as traders not only through all Transcaucasia but also in European Russia; beside them a small fragment of another race occupies the village Artchi (592 inhabitants) in a separate mountain valley. Towards the Caspian Sea ...