428 THE URUCII VALLEY. 



Having paid for our accommodation, we started for tlie 

 last day's journey over the Caucasian by-roads. The 

 whole valley of the Uruch, from Moska downwards, is so 

 narrow as to merit the title of a gorge ; but the principal 

 defile, where the river and the mountains meet for a final 

 struggle, commences a little more than a mile below 

 Zadelesk. A meadow shaded by some fine walnut-trees, 

 and enlivened, when we passed, by a large herd of cattle, 

 aifords a pleasant resting-place for those who have won a 

 way from the plains through the long gorge, and thence 

 a glimpse may be caught of the shining tablelands and 

 snowy summits at the head of the Karagam glacier. 

 Immediately behind the meadow towered a splintered 

 comb of rock, with a deep fissure cut down into it, the 

 subject of a legend, in which the Devil, as usual, plays the 

 chief part. The path winds round the side of this spur, 

 and though kept in careful repair, and nowhere diificult for 

 horses, the precipices below us, on our left, were so startling 

 that we preferred walking, to running any risk from a 

 chance slip of one of the animals. 



Fairly within the jaws of the mountain, we sometimes 

 had to descend into a lateral cleft, at others to climb over 

 rocky teeth, until we came to a spot where, the roadmakers 

 having apparently given up as hopeless the task of pene- 

 trating deeper into the gorge, the path began to zigzag 

 steadily upwards. The Uruch could be seen only from 

 time to time, fretting and foaming between the narrow 

 walls of its prison. On its opposite side the range rose in 

 stupendous limestone clifi's fringed with firs, mingled with 

 a variety of deciduous trees. As we mounted higher, more 

 summits of the snowy chain behind us came into sight, 

 but the converging cliffs of the defile still cut off all view 

 towards the north. A long and hot ascent brought us to 



