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84 THE EXTLUKATIOX OF THE CAUCASUS undivided plain, Ossete horsemen, draped in their hourhas, canter between the distant farms, until at last a tiny puff of smoke on the line told them that our guard had not tapped the telegraph wires in vain, and that we might still sup and sleep at Vladikavkaz. Vladikavkaz, thoucjh within a morninsf's drive of the base of Kasbek— as near as Interlaken is to the Jungfrau — is only 2300 feet above the sea-level. For those to whom Russian towns are already faraihar, the place will offer little worthy of notice. It has grown immensely within my recollection, and the population has increased between 1865 and 1895 from 3650 to 44,000. But the place has still the usual Russian features, an air of space being no object and ground-rents inappreciable, a general mixture of pi-etentiousness and untidiness. The Station Road is full of holes big enough to swallow a perambulator ; the principal street has a stunted grove in the middle, and is called a Boulevard. The residential quarter consists of white-washed, one-storied houses, which stand back modestly among gardens, as if they felt out of place so near the large hospitals, barracks, stores and offices. The only local colour is to be found among the crowd in the streets, and in the bazaar or market, where Ossete fur-caps, daggers, arms, and red water-melons are the principal objects exposed. For the traveller there is an hotel, not inferior to those found in minor French provincial towns, with an excellent restaurant. Mountaineers are no longer the strange phenomena they were in 1868, when a waiter to whom I presented a silver medal of our Queen — in the shape of a sixpence — said he should preserve it always as a memorial of the Enghshmen who had come to the Caucasus only to climb mountains. His point of view was Asiatic, and identical with that of the Japanese diplomatist who recently informed the Alpine Club that his nation were a 'serious people, who did not go up mountains without a religious object.' In these volumes my business is with the exploration of the heights and byways, not with the comparatively well-known postroads of the Caucasus. I shall not add to the already numerous descriptions of the great road to Tiflis. Is it not already included in the pages of Bradshaw ?
KASBEK AND TIIK ORSETE DISTRICT 85 It may be well, however, to point out that the ' Darial Pass' is not a saddle in a chain, but a gorge like the Via Mala, a rent through the granite heart of the Caucasus. The pass over the watershed lies beyond it, and is properly known as the Cross Pass (7977 feet). A public carriage performs the service from Vladikavkaz to Tiflis in twenty-four hours, and it is easy to post over in a day and a half, sleeping in good quai-ters at Ananur. at the southern foot of the range. The scenery may, in my opinion, best be compared to that of the Col du Lautaret in Uauphine. There is a very grand gorge, one uni(jue view of a great mountain, tlien a bleak highland district and a dull pass. The descent to Georgia is interesting, but the southern valleys are neither so picturesque nor so fertile as those of the Italian Alps. The impressions of awe and admiration reflected in the narratives of most of the travellers who have passed through the Darial are doubtless in some part due to the suddenness of the transition fi'om the interminable steppe to the mountains— from the horizontal to the perpendicular. To me they seem, and I luive traversed the Darial several times, somewhat excessive. It is true I have always come to it fresh from the more romantic and varied recesses of the central chain. The dehle is extremelv wild and savage. But its effect is somewhat reduced by the flat space beside the stream, and by the absence of the sudden turns and surprises found in many similar ravines. Its terrors have been perhaps fui'ther diminished by the construction of a new road on the left bank of the Terek, to avoid the destructive mud-avalanches brought down by a stream close to the village of Kasbek. It is a rare and happy accident when a frequented highway leads through that part of a range where the peaks are loftiest and the valleys most beautiful. Zermatt, Chamonix, Grindelwald, all lie far from the old tracks of pilgrims and travellers. The rule that the noblest scenery has to be sought out for its own sake, at a distance from the common and most convenient paths of men, holds good in the Caucasus as well as in the Alps. The village and post-station of Kasbek owe their name to the Russians, who caUed them after a native chief, one Kazibeg. The
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KASBEK AND TIIK ORSETE DISTRICT 85<br />
It may be well, however, to point out that the '<br />
Darial Pass' is<br />
not a saddle in a chain, but a gorge like the Via Mala, a rent<br />
through the granite heart of the Caucasus. The pass<br />
over the<br />
watershed lies beyond it, and is properly known as the Cross Pass<br />
(7977 feet). A public carriage performs the service from Vladikavkaz<br />
to Tiflis in twenty-four hours, and it is easy to post over<br />
in a day and a half, sleeping in good quai-ters<br />
at Ananur. at the<br />
southern foot of the range. The scenery may, in my opinion, best<br />
be compared to that of the Col du Lautaret in Uauphine. There is<br />
a very grand gorge, one uni(jue view of a great mountain, tlien a<br />
bleak highland district and a dull pass. The descent to Georgia<br />
is interesting, but the southern valleys are neither so picturesque<br />
nor so fertile as those of the Italian Alps.<br />
The impressions of awe and admiration reflected in the narratives<br />
of most of the travellers who have passed through the Darial are<br />
doubtless in some part due to the suddenness of the transition<br />
fi'om the interminable steppe to the mountains— from the horizontal<br />
to the perpendicular. To me they seem, and I luive traversed<br />
the Darial several times, somewhat excessive. It is true I have<br />
always<br />
come to it fresh from the more romantic and varied<br />
recesses of the central chain. The dehle is extremelv wild and<br />
savage. But its effect is somewhat reduced by the flat space<br />
beside the stream, and by the absence of the sudden turns and<br />
surprises found in many similar ravines. Its terrors have been<br />
perhaps fui'ther diminished by the construction of a new road on<br />
the left bank of the Terek, to avoid the destructive mud-avalanches<br />
brought down by a stream close to the village<br />
of Kasbek. It<br />
is a rare and happy accident when a frequented highway leads<br />
through that part of a range where the peaks<br />
are loftiest and<br />
the valleys most beautiful. Zermatt, Chamonix, Grindelwald, all<br />
lie far from the old tracks of pilgrims and travellers. The rule<br />
that the noblest scenery has to be sought out for its own sake,<br />
at a distance from the common and most convenient paths of men,<br />
holds good in the Caucasus as well as in the Alps.<br />
The village and post-station of Kasbek owe their name to the<br />
Russians, who caUed them after a native chief, one Kazibeg. The
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