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124 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
distant comb of ice. The last held the sunset longest, and
subsequent explorers have proved
the five-verst triangulation.
The near scenery carried my memory
it to be the Adai Khokh of
to the Dolomites ; here too
were craggy peaks, beech-forests broken by flowery glades, steep
slopes dotted by hay-cocks : but for the dark Colouring of the rocks
we might have been in
We took up our quarters
one of the side glens of Val Rendena.
in a deserted shepherd's shelter, a tent-
shaped hut of boards, well lined with hay.
At daybreak grey mists were driving about the higher peaks.
Still the weather did not look by any means hopeless. The chief
fatigue in the ascent was a tiresome gully — tiresome only because
A FRONT DOOR AT GEBI
it was filled with loose, small
fragments of slate, which sank
under the feet like shingle on
a sea - beach. Above this a
rocky buttress, where Signer
Sella found many crystals of
great size, gave easy access
to the snow. On our right
the neve ended in broken cliffs,
fragments of which formed a
small glacier remanie at the
bottom of a dark precipice far
below us. On our left the
mountain sloped in an enormous
mass of absolutely smooth slate,
pitched at a very high angle.
At this point the clouds covered
us, and all distant view was
lost. Twenty minutes' tramp
us to
up snow-banks brought
the long level ridge that forms
the summit. Sheltei'ed on the southern side from the cold wind
by the rocks, we waited long but vainly in the grey fog. The
skirts of the veil were from time to time lifted just enough to show