once or twice since; and by it the ascent is not really difficult, and involves, if the climber has proper appliances, no serious risk. We longed to try our fortune, but having nothing in the shape of a guide, nor any chance of procuring one, and no other mountaineering apparatus, there was little use thinking further of it.

Below us, on the opposite side from Kazbek, lay the little green plain with its patches of rye and oats, its fields divided by low stone walls and tiny, flatroofed cottages; beyond it, again, the eastern wall of · the valley rose with terrific steepness to a height of 11,000 or 12,000 feet, with slopes too abrupt to bear snow, which only lay in sheltered northward hollows. The elements of the view were the same as we had seen many a time before, but somehow the view had a character of its own quite unlike anything European. Whether it was that one missed the cheerful pastures dotted over with herds and châlets, or that there was no wood below, and comparatively little snow above, or simply that the mountain lines were more ruthlessly stern and jagged, it was hard to tell; but, anyhow, the impression was quite new. The Caucasus, though its latitude is but little farther south than that of the Alps, is not a mere repetition of the Alps on a larger scale, any more than the Russian steppe is a repetition of the Hungarian plain; its character, the impression which its scenery makes, is wholly different.

We returned to the post-house punctually at the appointed hour, but were met by reproachful faces.

"There are now no horses to be had; in your absence other travellers came up, and, being ready to start, called for all that were in the stable; we could not retain them. There will be none fit for work now before to-morrow morning." Although secretly rejoiced to have a few more hours under the shadow of Kazbek, still, as politeness required, we dissembled our satisfaction, were forgiven, and prepared to spend the night at the uninviting post-house. There still wanted an hour to sunset; so we rambled up to an Osset aoul, which stands on the western bank of the Terek, and examined the quaint little corn-mills that have been planted along the courses of the descending brooks, rude buildings of loose stone about four feet high, with a horizontal wheel inside a foot and a half in diameter, and two bits of millstones scarcely larger than those of the old Irish quern or hand-mill. Civilization in the Caucasian countries has not got so far as a windmill: at any rate, we never saw one. On the flat, earthen roofs of the houses the people were treading or thrashing out their rye; the interiors were dark, windowless, and apparently without furniture; the walls of unmortared stone. Pretty, fair-haired children followed us about, offering crystals for sale, or begging in an unknown tongne.

The Georgian village on the opposite side of the river, where the post-house stands, is more civilized; its houses are arranged in something like lanes; it has a church which from the style I took to be ancient, but found to date from the beginning of this century only, a curious instance of that steadfast adhesion to

old architectural models which is the rule in Georgia and Russia, and makes it difficult to tell the age of a building from its style, as one can generally do in Western Europe; though, to be sure, our descendants may not find it so simple a matter to fix the churches of the nineteenth century, which imitate every earlier fashion. In this village several of the houses had singular square towers, erected, no doubt, for purposes of defence in the unquiet times, before the coming of the Russians, when some neighbouring tribe might swoop down at any moment on the peasant. Such towers are common among most of the Caucasian peoples; the finest, one hears, are to be found among the independent Suans in the Ingur valley. While we were wandering round the church, we asked some question about it of a gentleman leaning over the second floor verandah of an adjoining house, the biggest in the village, and were desired, in French, to come up the ladder. Complying, we were welcomed by a young Iman with those soft handsome features which are so common among the Georgians, who turned out to be the Prince of Kazbek, a Georgian noble, who owns this part of the valley. He was entertaining two or three government employés sent from Tiflis to examine the glacier of Devdorak, which has several times formed a debâcle, behind which water accumulated in a lake, which, breaking out at last, devastated the Terek valley. Among them was a young engineer from the Baltic provinces, speaking German, and an accomplished Armenian official, speaking both German and French, with whom we talked about the Caucasus to

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our heart's content, over endless glasses of lemon tea, while the great mountain glittered before us in the clear cold starlight. It was late when we parted from our genial host at the door of the post-house; and before light next morning we had mounted the omnibus again, and were pursuing our drowsy way up the valley. It is comparatively open up here, perfectly bare of wood, and uninhabited, except for an occasional village surrounding two or three grim old square towers. The scenery is more savage than beautiful; but if we had not seen the Dariel defile lower down, we should have thought it magnificent, for Kazbek occasionally shewed his snows, blushing rosy under the first sunlight, to the west, while the great eastern range rose more imposing than ever as we approached the axis of the chain. The last station on the north side of the watershed is Kobi, where we breakfasted (as usual off the alone attainable eggs and tea), and where is a curious Osset altar, adorned all round with the horns of the great wild goat, Capra caucasica, at which sacrifices, half Christian, half pagan, are offered. Here the Terek comes down from a wild glen running deep into pathless mountains to the west, and the road turns up the short valley of a lesser stream, remarkable from the great number of mineral springs that gush out from its sides. One which we drank of sparkles with bubbles of carbonic acid gas, and had a pleasant sweetish taste; but all, as we were afterwards told, contain, along with their iron and other valuable ingredients, too much chalk to make them serviceable for medicinal pur

poses. The summit level of the road, about twenty. miles from Kazbek station and forty-one from Vladikavkaz, is 8015 feet above the sea, a green, slightly undulating level, from which no distant view can be obtained, except straight south, for on both sides it is enclosed by mountains rising about 1400 feet above it, while other summits farther back reach 11,000 or 12,000 feet. The Russians call this col or pass Krestovaya Gora, or Cross Mountain, from a cross planted on it. The name, "Pass of Dariel," belongs properly only to the gorge below Kazbek station, where the fort stands; but as this gorge is the most remarkable feature of the whole route, and the most important military position, geographers and foreigners generally extend its name to the whole road from Vladikavkaz to Tiflis. There is no fortification at the top, or anywhere, save at the Dariel gorge; nor did I see any military posts along the road. During the war with Shamyl, however, it was strongly guarded, and was indeed of the utmost importance to Russia; since by holding it they not only kept open their communications with Georgia, but prevented a junction between the hero of Daghestan and the tribes that were in arms to the west. Needless to say that it is also of the greatest consequence to her in the present struggle, since across it all her troops and munitions of war are sent to Armenia.

From the open green pastures of the watershed the road descends an almost precipitous mountain face in a series of long zigzags, cut with admirable skill, and at their foot reaches the pretty little Georgian village