CHIOKA. 243 



holes for windows. On our arrival, we were conducted 

 to a shed, open on one side to the air, where we were 

 requested to wait till quarters were prepared for us. In 

 the meanwhile the whole village gathered round to stare 

 at, and no doubt criticise, the extraordinary beings who had 

 come to visit them. Paul went off to survey our intended 

 lodging, and came back very disconsolate, for first appear- 

 ances certainly were not cheerful. The interior of all the 

 houses seemed the same — a couple of ill-lighted rooms with 

 rough stone walls, with wooden pegs stuck into their cre- 

 vices, from which hung clothes, sheepskin cloaks, and 

 various household and field implements. It was too dark 

 inside either to write or read, so we removed our mattrass 

 to a rough wooden balcony projecting from the front of the 

 house, whence there was a beautiful view down the valley, 

 closed by the dark forests opposite Glola, and the serrated 

 summits of the Wallatschibis Mta. A very sharp rock- 

 peak, rising over the southern slopes immediately opposite 

 the village, is in shape an almost exact model of the 

 Rothhorn from Zermatt ; we saw afterwards that it is an 

 impostor, being in fact only the end of a long and nari'ow 

 ridge running towards the valley from one of the chief 

 summits of the range between Gebi and Oni. 



In order to put into execution, as soon as possible, the 

 plan formed on the rhododendron slope above Gurschavi, of 

 effecting two passes across the main chain, we made en- 

 quiries among the villagers as to the Gurdzieveesk Pass, 

 which proved well known to them : at first they asserted it 

 took two days to reach the other side of the mountain, but 

 on being pressed, they admitted that a good walker might 

 do it in one. Our only difficulty was in settling the terms on 

 which a peasant would accompany us to the snow-level on 

 the southern side, and in making up our minds what instruc- 

 tions to give Paul, whom we meant to leave in charge of oiu* 



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