Untitled

36 THE EXPLORATTON" OF THE CATICASrS
15,400, JWrttB. peak 15,409; Tiktengen, 15,127; Gefffcola, 15,932:
Tetnukl, 15,319; Janga, 16,569; Skkara, 17,038; ami a crowd of
otlier peaks of between 15,000 and 13,000 feet. In a space aome
ten miles square in the Central Grroup there are found to be no
less than twenty distinct aummita of over 14,000 feet.
To orogra.pher3 anri map-makera the importance of Shkara long
remained unrecogni.aed. This noble mountain ia the Monte Puosa
of the Caucasus. Conspicuous from, the southern plains
from, the seaboard, it culminates like its Alpine
and even
rival in a five-
crested ridge. It has its Gomer Glficier in the Bezingi Glacier,
and its Val Anzasca in the glen of the Zena.
E am responsible for the erroneous identification (in 1868) of
Shka.ra with the Koshtantau of the five-verst map, now called
Dykbtau. Twenty-seven yeara ago, when I drew the view from
the Shtuluvaek, we saw two great mountaina where only one was
ma,rked on the raa,p. Here was a dilemma. Shkara from this
point of view wa^ fe.r the more imposing,
and we called it Kosh-
tantaTi, while the peak that had been measured under that name
on the raa.p we called an '
unknown peak.' Con.seqnently,
atiidenta of Caucasian literature must be careful to remember that
the TT .«] 1*^,1 atau, not only of my Central Caucasus, but also of
Mr. book and Mr. Dent's early articles, ia always Shkara.
In addition to Shkaxa we have found and climbed, and the
surveyors have now measured, three more great peaks on the actual
watersherl, and one projecting slightly from it on the aouth towarda
Suanetia. These are the broad-fe^ed Janga—an exaggerated PLz
Pabi ; the saildle-sha-ped crest of Katuintau ; the cone of Gestola ;
and the white pyramid of Tetnuld. All these mountains are
between 15,900 and 17,100 feet in height — higher, that ia, than
Mont Blanc. On the other side of the trench— at their northern
base— filled by the Bezingi and Dykhsu Glaciers, the Dykhtau-
Koshtantau ridge rises in the form of a horseshoe, with at least
five peaks of over 15,000 feet.
Ne:?t In prominence to the Central Group, on the main chain,
are to the west the peak of Tlktengen, the Schreckhorn of the
Cancasu."*, which dominates the head -waters of the Gara-auz ; the