Untitled

186 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
years felt a certain hesitation in insisting on the marvels I have
seen. Tt has been the fashion for
'
'
specialists
to discredit
travellers tales, and particularly when the traveller is not of
their own tribe. But there is no longer any need for apology. I
am now in a position to produce Signer Sella's photograj^hs as
evidence to the flowers of the Skenis Skali. And if Dr. Radde is
not enough, I have also at hand the recent testimony of a scientific
botanist, M. Levier, to the existence of what he has called, without
exaggeration, a vegetable Brobdingnag in these Caucasian glens.^
Before, however, inviting my readers to plunge with me into the
pathless wilderness, I must first lead them along the Suanetian
highroad— a highroad in the most literal rather than in any ordinary
acceptation of that word—which crosses from the post-station of
Alpana on the Rion to the Skenis Skali, and follows that stream
to the foot of the Latpari Pass.
This pass, 9256 feet in height, is crossed by an easy horse-path,
open during the three summer months. Early in October, however,
it is closed by snow, which does not disappear till July. For some
eight months in the year there is no access to Suanetia, except for
men on snow-shoes, or pedestrians who are prepared to face the
rough paths and torrents and stone-swept gullies of the defile of
the Ingur. Mr. Phillipps-Wolley, the only Englishman who has
taken this track along the river-banks, speaks of it thus:— 'It is
not too much to say that, unloaded, any man must be in good
condition and at least a fair mountaineer, with a steady head, to
in any sort compass that walk in three days ; loaded, these men
do the distance in about five ; but a life spent in such walks would
not be a very long one.'
To travellers accustomed to British methods of administration
it may seem strange
pains to construct at least a tolerably
that the Government should not be at the
safe mule-road to Suanetia.
The native nobles ai'e ready to provide the labour, but the money
and material have not hitherto been forthcoming.
The Department of Public Works is one of the weakest points
' See Chapter ii.