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C H A P T E K VIII
r.AI.KAI! AND P-KZIXt;
Cold, insipid, smouchy Tartars.
CHARLES LAMU
\K limits of the Ceutial Ciroup, the
heart of the Caucasus, have been de-
tined very conveniently by Nature. The
geologist as well as the topographer
Hnds a clear boundar}^ laid down for
lam.
The gfranite stretches from the
\ ^ J, 7^ Agashtan Pass westward to the Zanner ;
on both these tracks the traveller finds
crumbling slopes of crystalline schists.
The Central Group comprises the main
chain from Fytnargyn to Gestola, with
the great spur which circles horse-shoe-
wise round the Mishirgi Cilacier and includes Dykhtau and Kosh-
tantau.
In 1868 nobody knew anything about these mountains, except
that two of them had been measured and called Koshtantau
and Dykhtau by the Ilussian Surveyors. The first English
mountain explorers were puzzled, and we naturally made some
serious mistakes. So did ^Ir. Craufurd Grove and Mr. Clinton
Dent, who followed us. The Koshtantau of the old five-
verst map (now called Dykhtau) we identified with Shkara ;
our
successors confused Gestola with Tetnuld. Tt was not until
1887 that I was able to show positively that the gigantic Shkara
had been ignored by the earlier survey, and that Mr. Dent's