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THE ASCENT OF TETNULD 275
that it could be seen even from Mujal, and strong enough to have
borne an elephant.
All the way the views were sublime, and we were free to use
our eyes. Those who are familiar with the down-look from the top
of the Wetterhorn will understand our situation if I say that on
the edge of Tetnuld one enjoys for hours a similar sensation. The
snow falls away in a short white curve, and then you see, literally
between your legs, the meadows of Suanetia, 7000 feet below. Close
at hand were our gigantic neighbours, Janga and Shkara. In the
west, Elbruz loomed larger and loftier at every step. As the dome
of Brunelleschi dominates the campaniles of Florence, or St. Paul's
our City spires, so it raised its vast curves above all the lesser
heights. Even Ushba sank to a footstool before the great white
thi-one, inhabited, as the Caucasians believe, by the Prince of the
Power of the Air.
So three hours or more ; passed my aneroid was marking 16,500
feet (equivalent to about 15,700 to 15,800), but ever in front
rose a fresh frozen bank. I looked across to the north-west ridge,
Nous
and an eminence I had noted on it was below us.
'
approchons,'
I said to Francois.
' Nous allons arriver,' he replied
cheerily. The snow grew thin ; some steps had to be cut into ice.
There seemed less bulk in our peak ; the converging ridges were
below ; there was little but air above us. Twenty
minutes later a
white bank cut the sky ; it sank, our eyes overlooked it, our feet
trampled it. I ran on for a few level yards ; there was nothing
more ; two ridges fell steeply beneath me. Tetnuld was ours ;
another great peak of the Caucasus was climbed.
It was 1.15 P.M. We had been nearly four hours over the last
1700 feet of crest, twelve and a half hours, including halts, from our
bivouac. I am afraid I enjoyed the next hour more than the secre-
tary of a scientific— or quasi-scientific — society ought to have done.'
' The Royal Geographical Society, of which I was for thirteen years (1881-1894) one of the
Honorary Secretaries, is scientific in its aims but popular in its constitution. Owing to the
absence of any qualification for its membership — save sex and an annual subscription — the four
initials F.R.G S. do not necessarily indi>ate that their possessor is either a traveller or a
geographer. It is high time some conspicuous and easily recognisable line was drawn between
the qualified members of the Society and those who are simply subscribers.