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KASBEK AND THE OSSETE DISTRICT 83
attracted many of the wilder and more adventurous spirits of the
Russian noblHty, has been vividly described, from personal experi-
ence, by a writer of genius, Count Tolstoi, in one of his early
works, Les Cossaques, and some shorter tales, which every traveller
should have in his book-basf.
As Elbruz is left behind, two of the highest peaks of the Central
Group become conspicuous
in front of the other snows. A Cau-
casian Jungfrau, a symmetrical pyramid, cloaked in snowy drapery,
everv fold and wrinkle in which is distintruishable, shines through
the soft, lucid Caucasian au-. A Russian officer says '
Koshtantau.'
and our fellow-passengers look with increased interest at the noble
mountain on which the Englishmen were lost in 1888. Presently
a low ridge, crowned by the ban-ow of some forgotten chieftain,
rises in front, and the railway joins the Terek, which traverses
a narrow and shallow pass. As the hne emerges into the plain
of Vladikavkaz, two new snow-peaks, Kasbek and Gimarai Kliokh,
become conspicuous, and on the right the valley of the Ai-don
ofiers the first visible break in the vast mountain wall.
Slowly the weary engine pants up a long incline—a wide,
fan-like slope, formed by the alluvial soil brought down b}- the
Terek and other mountain-torrents from the flanks of Kasbek.
Happy are those who arrive without accident at their far-sought
goal ! Twice I have found myself with unwelcome leisure to
examine the landscape. In 1868 we sat for hours in the rain,
watching our luggage, beside a broken-down and wheelless post-cart.
Happily, we were not i-educed to the position Alexandre Dumas
has the audacity to assert he found himself in on a similar occasion
— that of keeping off a horde of wolves by means of a box of
lucifer matches. In 1889 our misfortune was comparatively slight,
and would have been hardly worth notice had it not happened
after an eighty hours' journey. But a traveller who has got into
the train at Moscow on Thursday morning, by Sunday afternoon
is apt to be impatient to arrive. Our destination was only half-
an-hour distant when the engine broke down. The passengers
sat on a bank and watched the w-hite clouds play round the great
peaks, the waves of air pulse, almost forming a mu-age, over the