VIEWS OF CAUCASUS. 
65 
over scenery, perhaps the sublimest in the world ; obscuring the 
impressions of its grandeur, by a deeper, but less noble one, of 
fear. 
From the now perfectly uncertain time of General del Pozzo’s 
appearance at Gregoropolis, I gave up the idea of our meeting 
there; and proposed my immediate departure. The convoy 
had been gone many hours ; but confiding my letter for His 
Excellency to the commanding-officer of the fort, I was fur¬ 
nished with an escort of twelve Cossacks, and set forth on my 
way to Wlady-Caucasus. 
The road lay over a continuation of the extensive plain, part 
of which we had crossed the day before : it bore a direction due 
east. On our right rolled the Terek, breaking over its stony 
bed, and washing with a surge, rather than a flowing stream, 
the rocky bases of the mountains which rise in progressive 
acclivities from its bold shores. The day had begun to cletr 
about noon; and the dark curtain of vapours, which had so long 
shut these stupendous hills from my sight, broke away into a 
thousand masses of fleecy clouds ; and, as they gradually glided 
downwards, exhaled into ether, or separated across the brows of 
the mountains, the vast piles of Caucasus were presented to my 
view; a world of themselves ; rocky, rugged, and capped with 
snow; stretching east and west beyond the reach of vision, 
and shooting far into the skies. — It was a sight to make the 
senses pause; to oppress even respiration, by the weight of 
the impression on the mind, of such vast overpowering 
sublimity. 
The proud head of Elborus was yet far distant; but it rose 
in hoary majesty above all, the sovereign of these giant moun¬ 
tains ; finely contrasting its silvery diadem, the snow of ages, 
VOL. i. 
K 
