360 FKOM TAKI TO PATIGOKSK. 



place, determined to get rid of it, and spent the greater 

 part of tlie night in charging clown on the sides of our 

 shelter. Fortunately, an Alpine tent is not easily upset, 

 but our slumbers were constantly broken by the uneasy 

 consciousness of an angry animal butting within a foot 

 of our heads. , 



July 30th. — The morning was fine, and the cold wind 

 seemed likely to be the harbinger of a spell of settled 

 weather. We did not expect a long daj^'s work, as Ave 

 were already at a height of about 8,000 feet, and were not 

 likely to find an eligible spot for our tent above 12,000 

 feet. We started, however, in fair time, in order, in case 

 of need, to be able to push on, and reconnoitre the work 

 before us. The horses came on, for half an hour, to the 

 foot of the glacier, which has retired considerably of late 

 years : there are distinct ancient moraines, now overgi'own 

 with herbage, a quarter of a mile in advance of the present 

 termination of the ice. Crossing the torrent, which was 

 divided into several branches, we began to ascend the 

 steep hillside on the right of the icefall, which is tolerably 

 clean, and finely broken into towers and pinnacles. After 

 some time a line of crags appeared to bar the way ; they 

 are, however, easily turned in one place, near a little fall 

 which tumbles in a pretty shower of water-rockets over 

 the almost perpendicular strata of basaltic rock. Above 

 this, gentian-studded slopes of short turf were soon suc- 

 ceeded by alternate beds of snow and boulders, extending 

 to the foot of a steep bank, from the top of which we 

 gained a clearer insight into the configuration of the 

 mountain-side. 



We were on a rocky ridge, the summit of which, still 

 some six hundred feet above our heads, confines the upper 

 snoAvfield, -which overflows towards the Baksan by two 

 channels — one, the icefall beside which we had ascended ; 



