424 THE URUCH VALLEY. 



were groups of the half-underground huts, that here fill 

 the place of chalets, and numbers of their occupants were 

 haymaking in the adjoining meadows. 



The dwellers on the Upper Uruch, known to the old 

 writers on the country as ' Digors,' are, as far as we saw, 

 the best specimens of Eastern Christianity in the country. 

 We understood, at the time, that they were a branch of the 

 Ossete tribe, whose territory they border on the east, but 

 the latest authors seem to class them, with the people of 

 Balkar and Uruspieh, as a Tartar race. A conical-shaped 

 wooded eminence closed the view of one of the bends in 

 the defile, and formed an admirable foreground to the 

 peaks of the main chain. On reaching its foot, where the 

 path abandoned the hillsides, and returned to the bank of 

 the torrent, we found ourselves in a region of richer and 

 more varied foliage, and constantly admired the contrast 

 between the bright green of the lower slopes and the white 

 shimmer of the peaks that overlooked them. 



Leaving behind us the conical hill, we emerged into an 

 open valley, and a basin surrounded by a semicircular 

 range of precipices opened on the right. Several glaciers 

 spread their icy skirts to the edge of the cliflfs, over which 

 streams tumbled in picturesque cascades ; while, crowning 

 all, snow-peaks, of the inaccessible order of mountain 

 architecture which might fairly be called Caucasian, lifted 

 their bold heads against the sky. It was a scene similar 

 to the cirque of the Diablerets, but on a far grander scale. 

 We rode across the rich and well-watered meadows on 

 the left bank of the Uruch, until, under the shade of a 

 picturesque group of chesnut and lime-trees, we halted, 

 to wait for our horsemen. When they rejoined us, we 

 continued our journey, and, leaving the first hamlet of 

 the valley on our left, passed through cornfields, almost 

 ripe for the sickle, either carefully fenced in, or only 



