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CAUCASIAN HISTORY AND TKAVEL 75
the castles and campaniles, that crown their brows ? How many
of the lower valleys of the Northern Alps owe half their attractive-
ness to the brown huts and quaint steeples that dot their slopes ?
Again, how large a part is played by literary and historical
associations for some, personal associations for all, in tlie pleasure
we derive from distant !
pi'ospects What a ditlerent sensation it is
to look up at a line of nameless snows, and to hail the Jungfrau
or Monte Rosa ; how much greater is the difterence when we
know the meaning of every line and scar on the distant peak,
when each recalls to us some incident in a hard-won victory ?
I never felt this more forcibly than when, on my third visit to the
Caucasus, I looked up from the Black Sea to a splendid spire,
and recognised the peak I had twenty jes.YS before compared to
the Grivola and the peak I had two years before planted my ice-
axe on— Tetnidd— as one and the same.
The Caucasus not only wants lakes ; it has very few mountain
tarns, and a waterfall worth going out of the way to look at has
still to be found. On the north' side there is a zone, between
the glaciers and the forests of the limestone belt, which is curiously
hideous, and it is this district that is traversed by the ordinary
horse-tracks.
For these reasons, I fancy that new-comers to the Caucasus are
likel}' to take some time before they fully recognise
its fascination.
They Avill miss at fii-st adjuncts to scenery, actual and mental,
to which they are accustomed. Yet those who persevere will
have their reward. They will learn for themselves within what
limits there is truth in the contention put forward by very eminent
writers, that traces of man's presence are ingredients essential to
our pleasure in scenery. They will tind that, if human agency
often makes, or adds to, the Picturesque in landscape —and particu-
larly to what is picturesque in the technical sense of the word,
reproducible in a picture — ^^there are aspects of nature which need
no help from man. The Italian Valley, the Genoese Corniche,
depend to a great
extent on our additions for their effect. The
frosty fastnesses of the Caucasus belong to a separate class of
scenery, and excite a difierent order of emotions. The mountaineer