PLA\ OF OPERATIONS. 209 



we had worked out was scouted by tliem as impracticable. 

 A volume given m.e by Herr Radde, containing the account 

 of his explorsCtions in the higher valleys of Mingrelia, 

 showed us that he had traversed, at different times, all the 

 country west of the Mamisson, to a point south of Elbruz, 

 with the exception of one short link, between the valleys 

 of the Eion and Zenes-Squali. It is one thing to 

 make excursions from a base to which you can return for 

 supplies, and where you can leave much of your baggage, 

 and another to push on from jDoint to point, carrying 

 everything with you, and harassed by the constant 

 difficulty of engaging fresh porters. We saw no reason, 

 however, to give up our original plan, despite the small 

 encouragement it had received from others, and accord- 

 ingly were ready on the morning after our return from 

 the ascent of Kazbek, to drive back to Kobi, where we pur- 

 posed to bid farewell to post-roads and such civilization 

 as they carry with them, and to adventure ourselves 

 among the primitive paths, and native inhabitants of the 

 mountains. 



Before I enter upon the account of our journey, and its 

 various adventures, I must ask my readers to open the 

 map, and to look at the disposition of the ridges and 

 valleys amongst which we are about to wander together. 

 It will be seen that the watershed of the Western Cauca- 

 sus, from a point south of Elbruz to the Adai Khokh 

 group, on the west of the Ardon valley, is an uninterrupted 

 and tolerably straight ridge, which nowhere sinks below 

 10,000 feet, and is traversed only by glacier-passes, some of 

 them practicable indeed to Caucasian horses, but even 

 those equal to the well-known Theodule in the extent of 

 snow and ice to be crossed. This central mass, according 

 to the testimony of recent geologists, confirmed in most 

 parts by our own unskilled observation is mainly composed 



p 



