A GLORIOUS ICEFALL. 313 



Over a break in the battlements of this mountain-Avall, 

 the ice pours down into the bottom of the Aclisch valley, 

 in a fall which, for its height, breadth, and purity, exceeded 

 anything we had seen elsewhere, either in the Alps or the 

 Caucasus. We estimated the height of the frozen cascade 

 at 4,000 feet, or little more than that of the Karagam 

 glacier, up which we had forced our way ; but the fall now 

 before us was far more broken, and, in our judgment, abso- 

 lutely impracticable. From side to side stretched deei^-blue 

 chasms, the space between them filled up by a very maze 

 of tottering pinnacles and moated towers. The whole 

 surface was of dazzling whiteness, similar to that of the 

 Rosenlaui glacier, before, disgusted by being treated as a 

 grotto by troops of tourists, it withdrew to the upper world. 

 At the foot of the fall the glacier re-makes itself, and 

 spreads out, with a crimpled but otherwise unbroken sur- 

 face, into a fanlike tail, the symmetry of which is slightly 

 marred by a projecting hillside. By some strange mistake, 

 the Five Verst Map marks a known pass straight up) the 

 centre of the icefall ! 



Two mountains, worthy of their post, stand like giant 

 sentinels to guard either side of this crystal staircase, 

 let down to common earth from the 'shining table- 

 lands,' untrodden as yet by human foot, which lie in 

 the heart of the Koschtantau group. On the west is 

 Tan Totonal, an elegant snow pyramid, resting on a 

 broad rocky base ; on the east is a rock-peak of some- 

 what inferior height, but of bolder form. Behind us the 

 Goroscho glacier, at the foot of which we had slept, and 

 the battlemented wall, which stretches away to the eastern 

 source of the Ingur, were still visible. In the glen at our feet, 

 which ran nearly south-west, we could see the towers of 

 Adisch, and we were high enough to command • a wide 

 view over the densely-forested ridges of Western Suanetia, 



