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192 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
since all the men were watching in the hekls we could not be
admitted. A barn outside gave some shelter, and our horses
were supplied with provender.
The ascent to the Latpari Pass is by steep zigzags through a
beech-forest. Imagine the Bisham woods, near Marlow^, 2000 in
place of 200 feet high. At last the green shade is left behind, and
scattered birches fringe the upper pastures, across which many
tracks, worn deep in the loose slaty rock, lead to a wide depression
in the range, the nearer summits of which do not reach the snow-
level. There is notliing sensational in the scenery, and the traveller's
attention is engrossed by the lovely flowers and the rai'e insects and
butterflies that wander about among them.
Let him pi'ay for an unclouded sky ; better, let him help himself
to secure it by camping high, so as to reach the crest at an early
hour. For the view from the Latpain Pass is not a sight to be
missed. Here, at a height of 9200 feet, the wanderer finds himself
brought face to face with the wlute mountains that he has seen
from Batum or Kutais. Opposite, beyond the trench of the Ingur
and a low range of foot-hills—broad green downs, unbroken by
crags or w-ood, clothed in deep flowery grasses that fall only to
the sharp scythe of October frosts— rise the granite precipices of
Shkara and Janga. The spectator's position with relation to the
Central Group is comparable to that of a climber of the Cramont
to Mont Blanc. That view was De Saussure's ideal of Alpine
macrnificence. Shkara is 1300 feet higher than Mont Blanc ; the
line of the Caucasian precipices runs west from it without a break
for ten miles ; then it does not end, but withdraws to enclose a
bay out of which a great glacier sweeps
down in a cataract of
pure ice, while beyond the gap the keen spire of Tetnuld soars in
isolated beauty against the sky.
It is a landscape w-hich no picture or photograph can render
adequately. For its effect depends not so much on the curves of
the skyline as on the boldness and scale of the mountain structure,
and the beauty of its details. The spurs or buttresses that hold
up the gigantic clifls of the central chain are splendid
in their
abruptness ; they rise immediately above smooth green hills, wliich