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CAUCASIAN HISTORY AND TRAVEL 67
Mamison Pass (9284 feet), and the Ardon and Rion Valleys,
which this road connects, are the only great valleys accessible
up to their heads to vehicles. In the mountains there is not, off
the Darial road, a single inn, in the European sense of the word.
On the Asiatic side bare sheds, in which boards take the place of
beds, built by the Government mainly for administrative purposes,
and hence known as '
or court-houses, are in the
Cancellarias '
principal villages open to the traveller armed with official papers.
On the north side the local Mohammedan chiefs place a guest-house
at the disposal of strangers. As a rule, they are ready to furnish
food also to travellers who are recommended, or appear to them to
be distinguished persons. Alpine Clubmen, after a month spent in
the mountains, do not as a rule fulfil this descrij^tion at first sight.
But hitherto our merit has never failed to assert itself before long
in the eyes of the native aristocracy, and even in the more remote
are '
villages the fact that '
Englishmen is paying guests beginning
to be duly appreciated, and to lead to the usual results— that we
are warmly welcomed and handsomely overcharged.
The inconveniences of travel are many. Unless a store of
provisions ample for all emergencies is taken, the mountaineer
may expect to go supperless while he waits for the mutton
that is still walking the hills, or the loaves that are being baked
in a distant hamlet. Wine is unknown in the northern valleys,
and an exceptional luxuiy in the southern. Transport, especially
than commissariat.
for the mountaineer, is a still greater difficulty
In African travel— indeed, in nuich Asiatic travel— porters or horses
once secured can be retained. Those \\'ho wander to and fro
across the Caucasian ridges are often stopped by snows impassable
for animals. The porters who act in their stead do not as a rule
care to go more than a certain distance from their own homes.
There is no competent local authority to which to appeal
in case of difficulties. While the old chieftains have lost much
of their feudal or patriarchal authority, the new stat'shinas or
village mayors, appointed by the Government, are in the more
remote districts treated with very scant respect by their com-
munities. The people are inveterate bargainers and have no