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142 THE EXPLOKATJUX OF THE CAUCASUS
August, and as on the Bigi in old days the pilgrims have a
double object, bodily as well as spiritual advantage. The Ossete
we had found camped by the Zea Glacier seemed a solitary
survival of tlie old habit, unless, Indeed, a party of young
women, whom we discovered bathing in a clear spring, were also
pilgrims. But on this point I can say nothing certain, for they
disappeared among the bushes with a promptitude equal to that
of our first parents, and for a similar reason. Fi'om the corn-
fields of Zea we saw the sun set behind the higher of the
double-headed peaks, we nearly missed the cart-track below the
villages in the gloaming, and an hour after dark were being
Cossacks of St. Nikolai.
warmly welcomed by the friendly
Clouds vexed us, as they have other travellers, in crossing
the Kamunta Pass, and we felt bound not to put off the search
we had set before us by lingering about the magnificent mountains
of the Karagom. The next, and last, instructive view I had of
the Adai Kliokh peaks was from Donkin's bivouac on the rocks
below the UUuauz Pass. The peaks were seen in outline at a
distance of from thirty to thirty-five miles, and I summarised what
I saw in a sketch-map issued in the Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society for 1889. But this sketch, though since
confirmed in essentials, was, to a certain extent, hypothetical and
without detail. It was a means and not an end. In 1890 the
end was attained. The orography of Adai Khokh was made
clear, its highest j^eak and its finest belvedere, Adai Khokh
itself and Burdjula, were climbed, and the scenery was illus-
trated by the superb photographs of Signor Sella, and by some
views, very valuable from a tojiographical standpoint, taken by
Mr. Holder.
I must briefly summarise the work thus done by mountaineers.
Signor Sella has given, in the Bollettino of the Italian Alpine
Club for 1892, a very clear and instructive account of his expeditions
and discoveries. He and his caravan descended from the
Kamunta Pass (8000 feet) to a bleak pastoral basin on the headwaters
of a tributary of the Urukh. Here they ascertained that
the Skatikom of the natives is the glen w^est of that so named on