THE CAUCASIAN PASSES. 85 



head looked down on us. I was promised that the hitch at 

 the post should, if possible, be got over, and received some 

 useful information as to the mountain districts. The 

 Count told me that we should find the Ossetes (a tribe 

 living on the north side of the chain, in the valleys round 

 Kazbek) the ' gentlemen ' of the Caucasus ; and that 

 Suanetia, the name given to the upper valley of the Ingur, 

 was the most primitive and, in some ways, most interesting 

 district in his government. He spoke in the most glowing 

 terms of the scenery of those parts of the country which 

 he had visited, and of the defile of the Dariel, the beauties 

 and horrors of which the Russians are all fond of descant- 

 ing on. From a postal map, which he kindly got out, I 

 discovered that seven passes were laid down over the main 

 chain between Kazbek and Elbruz. One of these, the Ma- 

 misson — running up the valley of the Rion to its eastern 

 source, and thence descending along the Ardon to Ardonsk, 

 near Vladikaf kaz — is a well-known route, and a carriage- 

 road has been traced, though never completed, over it. Of 

 the other six, some at least, as we found afterwards, are mere 

 glacier-passes, used only by the people of the country. All 

 this information was quite new to us, for, during the short 

 time at our disposal before leaving England, we had not 

 succeeded in finding any account of the country between 

 Kazbek and Elbruz, and our programme of ascending those 

 two mountains, and following out the main chain between 

 them, was based only on the German maps of the Caucasus 

 which we could obtain in London. 



On Sunday morning the postmaster came to call on us, 

 to say that he had one carriage at home, which should be 

 prepared if we liked it. We went to inspect the proposed 

 vehicle — a long-bodied trap, something like a Swiss ' berg- 

 wagen,' which had been disused for some time, and left out 

 in the rain ; consequently a small hay-crop was growing 



