418 THE TCIIEREK VALLEY. 



down steep frozen banks, where the horses, owing to the 

 perfect condition of the snow, and their own experience in 

 such work, found no difficulty, and the assistance of the 

 timorous old gentleman was scarcely needed. On reaching 

 the first grass, we satisfied his claims, and bade him and 

 his companion farewell. There was very little track to 

 guide us on this side of the mountain, and the horsemen did 

 not seem well acquainted with the way ; so that when, 

 after following a little stream amongst rich pasturages, we 

 emerged from its glen, on the verge of a steep descent lead- 

 ing into the trough of the Uruch, we found ourselves too 

 much to the left, and the horses had to make a slight cir- 

 cuit to reach the valley. The source of the Uruch is in a 

 moderate-sized glacier, chiefly noteworthy for the streaks 

 of red snow that lay on its central portion ; a pass may 

 probably be found over it to the Rion valley. 



We now ran down a rocky slope, with the precipitous 

 peak we had seen from the pass immediately opposite. In 

 this case nearer approach did not diminish the grand 

 effect of its cliffs, and we agreed that it deserved to rank 

 among the sensational features of the Caucasus. With such 

 an object in view, the scenery could not be dull, but, putting 

 aside the surrounding mountains, there was little to attract 

 notice in the long flat glen through which the Uruch runs 

 quietly for a while before it plunges downward through the 

 ravines we were to traverse on the morrow. The torrent 

 had made the level ground a museum for specimens of the 

 rocks of the main chain, brought down by its parent glacier. 

 Further on we came to a stretch of herbage, where numer- 

 ous springs burst out of the ground at every step, frequently 

 converting the path into a watercourse. At a point marked 

 ' Kut ' in the map, a stream from the northern range, the 

 peaks of which are almost dolomitic in the fantastic bold- 

 ness of their forms, makes a graceful leap over a wall of 



