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254 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS
The path crosses the Ingur and winds amongst copses, and
meadows full of hay-cutters, round the sjiur east of our valley.
Then, travei'sing the water of the Laila, it follows the tumbling
stream into the heart of the mountains. How can I suofgest
the tranquil loveliness of that wood, or the beauty and variety
of the flowery meadows it enclosed ? Near the head of the glen
its main branch turns westward, and ascending through glades
laid out by that great gardener, Nature, as if to frame vistas of
Ushba and the snows of the main chain, we entered a basin into
which the ice of one of the Laila glaciers, now directly overhead,
fell in avalanches, fragments
of which had rolled as far as the
yellow lilies and wild-roses that grew all about us.
We laid our sleeping-bags beside a clear spring-fed pool, shadowed
by maples
and beeches. Ushba was first a double flame in the
sunset, then a black cathedi'al front against the starry heaven.
cone of Elbruz. As I write
Beyond it loomed the immense pale
the words, the ghost of Dr. Johnson seems to repeat, 'No, sii", it
may be called immense, and a cone, in a book, but it is no more
than a considei'able protuberance.' We cannot all of us look on
mountains with the Doctor's compi'ehensive and almost cosmic
eye, and, perhaps, if he had seen Elbruz he might have pardoned
me for measining it by the scale of six-foot humanity. To ants
even a molehill must seem something more than a protuberance.
Before dawn rain splashed through the beech-leaves, and we
had to retreat from before our mountain, which on this side looked
formidable enough. We amused ourselves on the way down by
trying who could find the most blossoms on a single stalk of the
yellow lilies. Fourteen won the competition. Pursued by rainstorms
we fled through Latal, and away from the scanty resources
of the Priestav's deputy at Betsho and the native dukhan to the
hospitality of Prince Atar on the heights of Ezeri.
Prince Atar announced his intention to join us in our second
attempt on the Laila. Caucasians dine too late to start early,
and it was 1 p.m. before our cavalcade was ready and we set oft"
to ride across the meadows and down the steep zigzags to the Ingur.
At a villajre on its left bank lived an uncle of the Prince : at