AN UNEXPECTED CLIMB. 221 



have found a way back across the mountains to our luggage. 

 After the specimen the Ossetes had just given us of their 

 gentlemanlike behaviour, it seemed imprudent to separate 

 our party, and to leave our goods for an uncertain length 

 of time at their mercy ; so this idea was given up, and we 

 determined to push on, in the hope that the inhabitants 

 of the Rion valley would prove more friendly than their 

 neighbours, and that from it Adai Khokh might be acces- 

 sible. We crossed the stream by a narrow footbridge 

 immediately below our night-quarters. The sheep and 

 goats were at the same time starting for the pasturage, 

 and it was amusing to watch the way in which they 

 hustled one another in their eagerness to pass. The 

 sheep would follow peaceably enough for a minute, until 

 an old goat made a dash into the crowd, upset a lamb or 

 two into the water, and not unfrequently overbalanced 

 himself and got a ducking. The stream was strong 

 enough to give the poor lambs a good tossiag before they 

 got on their legs again, and came out dripping and 

 bleating from their morning bath. 



Nothing is more aimoying than a mountain in your 

 way when you have no reason to expect it, and it was 

 not without careful enquiry into the necessity of the 

 exertion that we consented to leave the valley, which 

 our horsemen assured us contracted below into an 

 impassable gorge, and set our faces against a mountain- 

 side of 2,500 feet. A good horsepath, mounted at first 

 by very steep zigzags, and then gTadually crej)t along the 

 top of a grassy ridge, and round the head of a hollow, to 

 the summit of a spur about 9,800 feet in height, whence 

 we looked down mto another side-glen of the Ardon. This 

 point commanded an admirable panorama of the extra- 

 ordinary chaos of mountains and network of ravines 

 which form the upper eastern basin of the Ardon. This 



