174 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



We stood silent, powerless to do anything, rigid with 

 apprehension. 



The pony had on the most impetus, which gained 

 momentarily by reason of its weight and hopeless 

 struggles. For a sickening instant the poor creature 

 hung poised on the edge of the abyss and then was gone. 

 As it fell it screamed piteously. I had never heard a 

 horse cry out in deadly fear before, and this once will 

 do me for a lifetime. 



The man was much luckier — or was it force of 

 superior mentality ? Landing on the tiny plateau our 

 endangered chef seized a jutting pinnacle and clung 

 to it like a barnacle. 



A relief expedition was speedily organized, and with a 

 hair rope — a wonderfully strong, light commodity 

 purchased in Tiflis — the man was hauled to safety. 

 He had to be allotted a horse to ride, being too over- 

 come to proceed on foot, but he had no bones broken. 



As a rule the dangers of the passes in Daghestan are 

 much exaggerated, but many of the so-called passes — 

 passes not even marked on maps, being just short-cuts 

 and byways of purely local reputation, were never 

 made by Nature to be passed at all. 



Sometimes as we followed these rents in the moun- 

 tains, creeping spider-wise along a little riband-like 

 path where the cliff curved over our heads, and 

 swept on to abysmal depths below, we came to 

 points where it would have been tricky work for 

 a rider to dismount, and to stick to one's steed and 

 pray to the Great Craftsman for a wider road was 

 the only policy. In such places, whenever I saw them 



