THE PASS-MTA. -279 



importance to Elbruz and Kazbek. We could see nothing- 

 of the kind, and Radde, who climbed as far as the pastur- 

 age, and was lucky in a clear day, asserts that the Pass- 

 Mta of the inhabitants of Gebi is nothing more than a 

 rocky buttress projecting from the main chain. Our pre- 

 decessor states this clearly in the following passage : — ' One 

 is very much surprised, after having looked out so long on 

 the journey for the Pass-Mta, to find in it nothing impos- 

 ing or out of the common. It is far inferior in height 

 not only to the Edenis-Mta, but also to the Lapuri (a 

 summit lying farther to the north-west), and the flattened 

 dome to which it rises scarcely attains the height of the 

 snow-line. Its distino-uishino- characteristic is that it 

 pushes forward from the main chain, here represented by 

 the Lapuri and Edenis-Mta, and thus encloses the source 

 of the Rion on one side, while the ridge called Goribolo 

 shuts it in on the other.' 



The solution of the apparent inconsistency between the 

 wide reputation of the mountain and its real insignificance 

 is not, I think, difiicult to discover; to us, at least, the follow- 

 ing explanation seems sufficient and satisfactory. The name 

 of Pass-Mta has been applied, by the people on the south 

 side of the chain, to the mountain they cross in going over to 

 the Tcherek. The traveller on the hills which gird the 

 lowlands of Mingrelia on the south, sees, when looking at 

 the opposite chain of the Caucasus, a great snowy mass mid- 

 way between Kazbek and Elbruz. He does not know its 

 name, and can find no one to tell him, but by the map he 

 makes out that it must be somewhere near the source of the 

 Rion : the only mountain well known there is, he is told, 

 the Pass-Mta, so, putting two and two together, he settles 

 that the great w^all of ice which has attracted his atten- 

 tion, and which is in reality the southern face of the 

 Koschtantau group, must be the Pass-Mta of the people 



