A HIGH PEAK. 121 



entered Betcho lay a village large in compa- 

 rison to most of those we had hitherto met 

 with. Here the inhabitants were permanent 

 settlers, and not mere migrants like those 

 who lived in the wooden shanties . romid the 

 court-house. 



But there is one monarch who always 

 looks down on Betcho, whiter and summer, 

 with unchanging fidelity, and lends a beauty 

 to the miserable collection of hovels, for which 

 their inhabitants may well be grateful. I 

 have seen in my time many mountains, but 

 to my mind none can compare to glorious 

 Ushtba, the highest peak save Elbruz in 

 Svanetia, and like Elbruz, hardly within that 

 province though just on its confines. The 

 peak rises clean and steep, not losing much of 

 its height of 17,500 feet by a gradual ascent, 

 and when I first saw it, with the rose lio-hts 

 of declining day on its masses of snow, 

 towering right over the squalor and insig- 



