VIEWS OF CAUCASUS. 
75 
Our escort was reinforced by those who had fulfilled the 
advance duty of the night before; and the whole moved on 
without molestation, though several times we could discern dif¬ 
ferent parties of the banditti scrambling high amongst the rocks. 
Their desperate situations, and savage costume, heightened the 
Salvator-Rosa picture of the scene. But from the chance of the 
road not being quite free from them, I was always prevented, 
though often induced to halt alone for a few minutes, to snatch 
a hasty sketch. The officer of the convoy would not allow it, as 
any single straggler might be cut off in a moment, by the sudden 
spring of one of the undiscovered ambushes. But I could not 
resist the temptation entirely; and, once or twice I detained a 
chasseur or two with me, while I tried to catch some loose 
memorandums of those mighty mountains I might never see 
again. 
As we advanced in the valley, we found testimonies of the 
most terrible convulsions of nature. Basaltic columns appeared 
in huge masses over the surface of the mountain, and takino 
various directions. Some shot horizontally into its side; some 
stood in erect piles against it; and others inclined, more or less, 
from the perpendicular. These might be taken, when viewed 
at a little distance, for the ruins of some vast antediluvian city. 
The shattered remains of extensive palaces, castles, temples, and 
embattled walls, seemed to spread every where; while, here and 
there, a space of scanty verdure, or a large fragment of pure 
granite, separated these more than semblances of awful change. 
There can be no doubt, that the alternate influences of heat and 
cold, have been prime agents in producing the present chaotic 
state of this valley. Anciently, subterraneous fires, and subse¬ 
quently, the sun’s effect upon its incumbent snows, acting also 
l 2 
