THE SIKAR PASS. 473 



tliem have already been carried away by tlie floods. The 

 track, left half finished like most Russian engineering* 

 works, is already falling into disrepair. At its present rate 

 of progress, years must j^ass before the arduous work in the 

 long Mingrelian valley of the Chani-Squali is brought to 

 a termination. Having reached the top of the spur, the 

 road kept along a tolerably broad ridge between the two 

 glens, afibrding views, now over one, now over the other. 

 The eastern basin was the most extensive, and we con- 

 tinually remarked the admirable grouping and forms of 

 the ridges that surrounded it. The road passes through 

 an extensive tract of forest desolated by fire ; there are 

 few gloomier sights than a burnt forest, and beyond the 

 crop of weeds which covered the ground, nature had done 

 nothing to repair the desolation. The tall charred trunks 

 stood up, brown and leafless, and no younger trees had as 

 yet sprung up amongst them. 



We were glad to reach the point where the ridge 

 merges in the watershed of the mountains, a few hundred 

 feet below the broad gap which forms the pass. The 

 forest ceases at about the same level, and the final ascent 

 is by long zigzags over a grassy slope covered with rank 

 herbage. Passing a solitary house occupied by several 

 Cossacks, and the ruins of a large encampment used by 

 the detachment formerly engaged in cutting the road, we 

 pushed eagerly up the crest, anxious to resolve the 

 question which, since leaving Tiflis, had been a source of 

 alternate hope and fear — whether we should gain from this 

 point a clear view of the Caucasian chain. The sky over- 

 head was of unclouded blue, but, knowing how soon the 

 vapours drawn up by the morning sun from the Mingre- 

 lian marshes condense into clouds, we feared that the 

 mountains might already be partially obscured. Our 

 delight therefore was unbounded when, as we crested the 



