OF THE OLD WORLD. 421 



which often resembled a well kept-up file-firing, 

 varied by rolling volleys of musketry, whilst at in- 

 tervals the roaring of avalanches sounded like salvoes 

 of heavy artillery. 



Those who have not witnessed cannot conceive 

 the solemn grandeur of the scene then before us, and 

 description can convey but a very faint idea of it. 

 The firmament was of that intensely-deep blue pecu- 

 liar to the waves of the jMediterranean at certain 

 times, and contrasted strangely with the dazzling 

 whiteness of the eternal snow, which lay spread out 

 like the vast winding-sheet of a dead world. The 

 sun, too, shone with a peculiarly strange unearthly 

 light, more like that of the moon, as if his rays were 

 not'sufficicntly powerful to penetrate the atmosphere. 

 For some time I was too much bewildered and over- 

 powered by emotion to fix my mind attentively on 

 the grand panorama stretched before me, but after a 

 time I distinguished, in the south-east, the lofty peak 

 of Mount Kasbec, towering high above rano-es of 

 mountains, rising one behind another, and diversified 

 with the richest colouring. To the westward, over- 

 looking the ranges of mountains we had passed, lay 

 the blue expanse of the Euxine, glistening in the 

 light of the sun like a sheet of burnished silver ; 

 and far away, in a north-easterly direction, over 

 fields of eternal snow, vast glaciers, and a sea of 

 mountain-ranges, intersected by deep, dark, densely- 

 wooded ravines, were the plains of the Kuban, veined 

 by sliming rivers. To the south-east, on the verge 



