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136 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS he gained the top of a double peak. Questions have been raised in his own and others' minds as to which summit he ascended, but after very careful consideration of all the evidence contained in M. de Ddchy's narrative and Mr. Woolley's photogi'aphs, I feel very little doubt that he attained the peak he aimed at. In Petermann's Mitteilungen (1889, Heft 9), M. de D^chy scale of the Zea Glacier. His carto- published a map on a large grapher, with excellent intentions— for it is a hard thing to persuade cartographers that a Government Survey may be worse than useless for the latter — tried to extend it to the Karagom Glacier, using the five-verst map. Not unnaturally the result was most un- satisfactory. There was obviously 'something wrong somewhere.' We have now, I believe, found out w^here. From officers of the Topographical Bureau at Tiflis— whose invariable courtesy to foreigners and readiness to communicate all scientific information relating to the Caucasus call for my warmest acknowledgment — I obtained the points from which the triangulation of the Adai Khokh of the five-verst map —made in the Fifties—was taken, and found that they were very distant points. Obviously General Chodzko and his surveyors had triangulated the highest peak of the group from afar, and on nearer approach had wrongly identified the summits, and distorted their topography in order to I'econcile them. The Adai Khokh Group resembles, as I have pointed out, in several respects the Oberland ; the Karagom corresponding roughly to the Aletsch Glacier. What had happened was equivalent to the Finsteraarhorn having been triangulated from Bern, and the Schreckhorn or Eiger wrongly identified with it in filling in the topography. still remained to be discovered. But the Finsteraarhorn of the Caucasus It was not until 1887 that, as has been described in the last chapter, when half-way up Shoda, the isolated peak south of Gebi, I saw once more the Adai Khokh Group, and looked over our old pass to the mountains that encircle the Karagom Glacier. There, sure enough, was the peak I wanted. There were indeed two mountains ; a rock-peak with two blunt heads, close behind the double snow- peak of the Rion, and, farther back, a long comb of snow and ice on
THE ADAI KtlOKll GROUP 137 which the sun's last rays rested longest. Clouds spoilt my panorama from the summit of Shoda, but this short glimpse had been enough to suggest a solution of the problem. In 1889, before undertaking the search for traces of our friends lost in the previous year on Koshtantau, we gave our Swiss guides a training walk in the Adai Khokh Group. We forced the glacier pass I had planned in 18G8, between the Zea Valley and the Mamison Pass. We left the half- ruined refuge on the south side of the Mamison at 2 a.m., and knocked up the Cossacks at St. Nikolai at 9 p.m. The ascent was by the glacier which gives birth to the Ardon. We had a very extensive view over Ossetia to the south, a region of isolated mountains and high grass-passes, where the main chain changes its character, as the Alps do beyond the Simplon. What we saw on the farther side was more limited and less agreeable. Four hours were spent in descending a very difficult rock-wall, only 400 feet high, on to the Zea snowfields. There was seldom foothold and handhold at the same time ; and, as all the grooves and hollows Avere sheeted with ice, there was much of that interminable w^ork known to climbers as step-cutting. We were a party of eight, on two ropes it is true, but still more than twice too many. Our Oberlanders were somewhat out of condition and heart ; they had not yet taken the measure of life in the Caucasus. We on the last rope were hampered by the terror of sending down stones on those in front. Wherever it was possible to find a perch we halted till they were out of range, and I succeeded in utilising such leisure moments in making rough outlines and notes of the peaks and ridges that encompassed us. Opposite was the Mamison Peak, or Khamkhaki Khokh. From this side it loses its symmetry and exhibits a long rib of rock and ice, running down to sepa- rate the two basins of the Zea. The northern snowfield is by far the more extensive. Over this appeared the double peak of the Piion Valley, masking the summits beyond it. To its right,' hemming in the head of the invisible Songuta Glacier, rose a ' I doubt if there be any direct pass from the Zea nSve to the Songuta Glacier.
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136 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS<br />
he gained the top of a double peak. Questions have been raised<br />
in his own and others' minds as to which summit he ascended,<br />
but after very careful consideration of all the evidence contained<br />
in M. de Ddchy's narrative and Mr. Woolley's photogi'aphs, I feel<br />
very little doubt that he attained the peak he aimed at.<br />
In Petermann's Mitteilungen (1889, Heft 9), M. de D^chy<br />
scale of the Zea Glacier. His carto-<br />
published a map on a large<br />
grapher, with excellent intentions— for it is a hard thing to persuade<br />
cartographers that a Government Survey may be worse than useless<br />
for the latter<br />
— tried to extend it to the Karagom Glacier, using<br />
the five-verst map. Not unnaturally the result was most un-<br />
satisfactory. There was obviously 'something wrong somewhere.'<br />
We have now, I believe, found out w^here.<br />
From officers of the Topographical Bureau at Tiflis— whose<br />
invariable courtesy to foreigners and readiness to communicate all<br />
scientific information relating to the Caucasus call for my warmest<br />
acknowledgment — I obtained the points from which the triangulation<br />
of the Adai Khokh of the five-verst map —made in the<br />
Fifties—was taken, and found that they were very distant points.<br />
Obviously General Chodzko and his surveyors had triangulated<br />
the highest peak of the group from afar, and on nearer approach<br />
had wrongly identified the summits, and distorted their topography<br />
in order to I'econcile them. The Adai Khokh Group resembles, as<br />
I have pointed out, in several respects the Oberland ; the Karagom<br />
corresponding roughly to the Aletsch Glacier. What had happened<br />
was equivalent to the Finsteraarhorn having been triangulated from<br />
Bern, and the Schreckhorn or Eiger wrongly identified with it in<br />
filling in the topography.<br />
still remained to be discovered.<br />
But the Finsteraarhorn of the Caucasus<br />
It was not until 1887 that, as has been described in the last<br />
chapter, when half-way up Shoda, the isolated peak south of Gebi, I<br />
saw once more the Adai Khokh Group, and looked over our old pass<br />
to the mountains that encircle the Karagom Glacier. There, sure<br />
enough, was the peak I wanted. There were indeed two mountains ;<br />
a rock-peak with two blunt heads, close behind the double snow-<br />
peak of the Rion, and, farther back, a long comb of snow and ice on