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CHAPTER V THE MAMISON PASS AND GEBI 'AcrTpoyeiTovns Se XPV KopvC^as vnepjBdWovaaf €S p.f(njii^ptvr]V ^SCHTLUS. I HE passes of the western portion of the Central Caucasus are barred by glaciers. It is not until we come to the eastern source of the Rion that we find that Nature has provided any facility for the passage of the main chain. At this spot, the frosty crest, that has stretched uninterruptedly from the Klukhor Pass, above Sukhum Kale, turns suddenly into a grassy ridge, easy of access from either slope. On the south side the road accomplishes the last climb by a series of zigzags, but there is no need for any heavy engineering, such as is common on Alpine Passes of much less elevation. On the north side, the 7000 feet of ascent from Alagir to the top is eftected with only one zigzag. If proper Refuges and a staff of labourers, chai'ged with the repair of bridges and embankments and the removal of snow-drifts, were provided by the Government, the pass might be kept open for wheels during at least four months in the year. Its importance as the only direct access from Ciscaucasia to Kutais would seem to make it worth while to incur the needful expenditure. To half-construct a road and then 104
THE MAMISON PASS AND GEKI 105 let it tall to ruin seems to us Western Europeans had ecouoniy. Not so, however, to Russians. Throughout the Empire the tradition of road-making is absent. The national road is a track deep in dust or mud, and barely passable, except when sledges supersede wheels. The stamp of Russian road-work is its imperfection. In the Caucasus, where so much work of this kind has been called for, the peculiarity is conspicuous. With prodigious effort, and at enormous expense — it is said £4,000,000, or more than five times the cost of the Simplon to Napoleon — the Pass of the Caucasus has, indeed, been brought to a condition equal to that of Alpine highroads. A Swiss canton or an Italian commune looks after its contractors verv difterentlv. But the Mamison Road remains in part an un- metalled track, liable to be broken by every winter snowfall or summer rainstorm. On the Klukhor Road, the bridges are built only to be carried away or disregarded altogether by a playful stream, which waits until they are finished, and then either sweeps the whole structure down to the Black Sea or adopts a new channel a few yax'ds away, leaving the arches high and dry. The visitor who drives eastward along the coast from Sukhum Kale soon finds, like lo, his road barred by a violent torrent, and his horses forced out to sea to ford it by the bar. To return to the Mamison. Where a commercial highway ought to exist and to be maintained, a track has been secured which, at any sudden emergency, a few regiments might I'ender practicable, without any great delay, for troops and artillery. In the mean- time it furnishes mountaineers with a convenient approach to the chain; and it can be recommended to travellers who are not in a hurry and can afford to run the risk of finding the I'oad interrupted, and no relay of horses or vehicles procurable beyond the break. In variety of scenery the Mamison Road, in my opinion, far surpasses the more famous Pass of the Caucasus. Tiiere may be nothing so horrid, ' — so duris cautihus as a last-century traveller would have said, horrens,' in — Virgil's phrase as the Darial defile, no single view so strangely impressive as the glimpse of Kasbek from the post-station of the same name. But the Kassara
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CHAPTER V<br />
THE MAMISON PASS AND GEBI<br />
'AcrTpoyeiTovns Se XPV<br />
KopvC^as vnepjBdWovaaf €S p.f(njii^ptvr]V<br />
^SCHTLUS.<br />
I HE passes of the western portion of the<br />
Central Caucasus are barred by glaciers.<br />
It is not until we come to the eastern<br />
source of the Rion that we find that<br />
Nature has provided any facility for<br />
the passage of the main chain. At this<br />
spot, the frosty crest, that has stretched<br />
uninterruptedly from the Klukhor Pass,<br />
above Sukhum Kale, turns suddenly<br />
into a grassy ridge, easy of access from<br />
either slope. On the south side the<br />
road accomplishes the last climb by a<br />
series of zigzags, but there is no need<br />
for any heavy engineering, such as is<br />
common on Alpine Passes of much less elevation. On the north<br />
side, the 7000 feet of ascent from Alagir to the top is eftected<br />
with only one zigzag. If proper Refuges and a staff of labourers,<br />
chai'ged with the repair of bridges and embankments and the<br />
removal of snow-drifts, were provided by the Government, the<br />
pass might be kept open for wheels during at least four months<br />
in the year. Its importance as the only direct access from<br />
Ciscaucasia to Kutais would seem to make it worth while to<br />
incur the needful expenditure. To half-construct a road and then<br />
104