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96 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS dark. The men had supposed us lost, and now, overjoyed to see us again, talked, kissed, and hugged us all simultaneously. The excitement among the villagers grew intense. The porters told them that we had disappeared up the mountain, and that our tracks were visible to a great height on the southern face ; the shepherd boy was a witness to our mystericus appearance on the other side the same evening • the two facts showed that we must have crossed the mountain, and we suddenly found ourselves installed as heroes instead of humbugs in the jJ'-^blic opinion of Kasbek. Two of the porters after a time took courage to allege that they had followed in our footsteps to the top, but this bold fiction was not pressed on our acceptance. In after years M. Muromzoft", a writer whose contributions to Caucasian travel and literature I have commented on sufficiently elsewhere,' set up for these two porters — Toto and Zogel, he says their names are— a serious claun to have followed us to the summit. The account, as he professes to have taken it down from their lips, is full of contradictions and impossibilities. But I would not attach too much weight to the defects of his version, if the story were otherwise credible. But it is not : no man in sandals, and without climbing appliances, could have got vip by our route, and had the porters attempted it, we must have seen them in our tracks, during the hours we spent on the ice-wall or on our return to the gap. May Toto and Zogel long live to enjoy the honour thi'ust on them by the provincial or national feelings of the good people of Tiflis, who twenty years later were ready to hail the first Russian ascent of the peak as its first ' authentic ' ascent ! As usual, our successors have escaped most of the difficulties and perils that beset pioneers. Some details of subsequent ascents are given in the Appendix. Recent climbers have altogether avoided our ice-wall ; they have either climbed the rocks of the eastern face, or followed the obviously easiest route—the line of our descent. above the Nothing is wanted but a hut on the rocks, high Devdorak Glacier, to make the expedition as practicable as the ascent of Mont Blanc. ' Alpine Journal, vol. xii. p. 320.
KASBEK AXD THE OSSETE DISTRICT 97 The glen which we had traversed in our descent from Kasbek, that of the Devdorak Glacier, is almost as famous as the mountain itself. It has been the source of catastrophes —known for manv years as the 'Kasbek Avalanches,' by which, prior to 1832, the THE DEVDORAK GLACIEK gorge of Darlal and the Lower Terek valley were frequently inundated. Now it is obvious that no ' avalanche,' in the ordinary sense of the term, falling from anywhere near Kasbek, could reach the highroad. There is a long, comparatively level, glen between them. The inundations were clearly similar in character to those of the Swiss Val de Bagnes. Blocks of ice as well as boulders VOL. I. G
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KASBEK AXD THE OSSETE DISTRICT 97<br />
The glen which we had traversed in our descent from Kasbek,<br />
that of the Devdorak Glacier, is almost as famous as the mountain<br />
itself. It has been the source of catastrophes —known for manv<br />
years as the 'Kasbek Avalanches,' by which, prior to 1832, the<br />
THE DEVDORAK GLACIEK<br />
gorge of Darlal and the Lower Terek valley were frequently<br />
inundated. Now it is obvious that no '<br />
avalanche,' in the ordinary<br />
sense of the term, falling from anywhere near Kasbek, could reach<br />
the highroad. There is a long, comparatively level, glen between<br />
them. The inundations were clearly similar in character to<br />
those of the Swiss Val de Bagnes.<br />
Blocks of ice as well as boulders<br />
VOL. I. G
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