Untitled

18 THE EXPLORATIOX OF THE CAUCASUS
I first went to the Caucasus
Twenty-eight years ago, in 1868,
with two companions, Mr. Comyns Tucker, afterwards a Fellow of
University College, Oxford, and the late Mr. Adolphus W. Moore,
C.B., of the Political Department of the India OtSce, a public
servant of rare ability and a true-hearted and unfailing friend,
whose premature death, in 1887, was felt as a national as well as a
private loss all by who had come
intimately into contact with him.
We took with us a Chamonix
ouide, Francois J. Devouassoud.
the fii'st Alpine guide to carry
his ice axe to the snows of a dis-
tant range.
In the course of our
journey Kasbek and Elbruz,' the
only tv'o peaks of the Caucasian
chain that were then known to
fame in Western Europe, were
climbed for the tirst time. We
visited the more important valleys
between them on the south side
of the range, obtained some idea
of the importance of the Central
Group, and brought to light the
A. \V. MOORE, C.B.
existence of a number of great
peaks. Travel in the mountains
was at that time difficult, and some of the most attractive
districts were still far from safe. In 1875 j\Ir. F. Craufurd
Grove published his Frost i/ Cducasus, a very lively and in-
teresting account of the first ascent of the western, which has
proved to be slightly the higher, of the two cones of Elbruz,
and of a tuvu' through the heart of the mountains, made in the
previous year by himself, my former comjmnion Mr. Moore,
Mr. Horace Walker, and ^Ir. Frederick Gardiner, with Peter
Knubel, a Zermatt guide. The party crossed the main chain b}-
' Travels in the Central Cartcasus and Bashan. Longmans, 1869.