318 SUAXETIA. 



eminences, before it finally sank down to the bed of the 

 Ingur at Latal, where the Mushalaliz torrent joins the 

 main stream. The distant snmmits of the Leila, with 

 their foreground of wooded gorges and village- dotted 

 slopes, formed a landscape which anywhere else would 

 have absorbed our attention ; but we were now more 

 anxious minutely to examine the details of the main chain, 

 which swept round the northern side of the Mushalaliz 

 valley, a broad green expanse relieved by the white towers 

 of many villages. Two large ice-streams filled deep 

 trenches in the mountains, and terminated amongst the 

 lofty cliff's, which close abruptly the head of the valley. 

 The lower portion of the western glacier jjresents a flat 

 dirty surface, and is fed by two large icefalls, the origin 

 of which was lost in cloud ; the second slides out a long 

 twisting tongue of ice, which descends below the level 

 of the forest. 



We now followed the top of the wooded brow. The 

 combination of an exquisite woodland foreground with 

 varied and magnificent distant views rendered this 

 portion of our day's journey the most lovely walk we 

 had ever taken. It is quite impossible to convey in 

 words any idea of the beauty of the landscape, or the 

 grandeur of scale which placed the scenery beyond com- 

 parison with any of the show-sights of Switzerland. 

 Woods of ash, hazel, and fir alternated with coppices of 

 laurel, white rhododendron, and yellow azaleas, the scent 

 of which perfumed the air. Tall tiger-lilies, one of the 

 characteristic flowers of the Caucasus, shot up their 

 tawny spikes through the rich herbage, while dark-blue 

 lupins and hollyhocks challenged their supremacy over the 

 humbler flowers — campanulas, bluebells, and cowslips — 

 which carpeted the ground. Every break in the wood 

 afforded a glimpse, now over the pine-fringed gorges to 



