44 
VIEW OF CAUCASUS. 
their breast is sewn a range of narrow pockets, each large enough 
to hold a wooden case containing a charge of powder; the range 
usually counts six or eight of these charges. Independent of this 
magazine, few go without a light cartouch-box attached to another 
belt which crosses the right shoulder. Their saddle, and the rest 
of their horse accoutrements, differ little from the fashion of most 
other Cossacks. But both man and horse are, in some measure, 
protected by their bourka , a sort of cloak made of the hair of 
the mountain-goat, and only manufactured by the mountaineers. 
This forms an excellent defence against rain or wind, when 
brought round the body ; but in mild weather it is merely tied 
on behind. In addition to the cloak they wear a hood for the 
protection of the face and ears, called a bashlick. No fixed 
colour marks the uniform of this military branch of imperial 
Cossacks ; but brown, grey, and white seem the favourite hues. 
On quitting Zergifskoy, we mounted the height, and continued 
travelling over a country similar to that we had passed the pre¬ 
ceding day. We hoped to gain the town of Alexandroff before 
night, but were disappointed, and obliged to halt at the village 
of Severnaia, finding it impossible to proceed on so dangerous 
a road after dusk. We set off, however, by times in the morning; 
and, after traversing a rather uneven country, at the distance 
of eight or ten wersts from our last lodgings reached the 
brow of a very steep hill; from whence, for the first time, I be¬ 
held the stupendous mountains of Caucasus. No pen can express 
the emotion which the sudden burst of this sublime range 
excited in my mind. I had seen almost all the wildest and 
most gigantic chains in Portugal and Spain, but none gave me 
an idea of the vastness and grandeur of that I now contemplated. 
This seemed nature’s bulwark between the nations of Europe 
