Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/358

Rh of Mujal from the main valley of the Ingur. For delightful scenery this ridge has no equal. Grassy lawns shaded by stately trees and watered by delicious springs, offer perfect camping-grounds. Away to the northward rises the great range dominated by the most majestic peak in the whole region—the double-headed Ush-ba; whilst to the south are the forest-clad valleys and walled villages where the native still looks with suspicion on the stranger. At Scena the oxen may still be seen treading out the com, and rude winnowing effected by throwing up the grain in the open air, the wooden shovels used for this purpose being carved out of a single pine-log. The women may still be seen grinding the com in quaint hand-mills, and all the associations of the village carry one's mind back to the earliest pioneers of civilisation. So delightful is this region of dense primeval forest, of valleys where the torrents carve their way through the roots of huge pines, of tiny oases of grass, and banks buried in raspberry-canes loaded with delicious fruit, that the mountaineer is apt to lose sight of the path of duty and abandon himself to lazing on the grass and watching the tiny specks of sunlight dancing amongst the foliage.

But my enthusiasm is leading me away from the matter in hand, Early in the afternoon we said good-bye to our host, and strolled up a lateral valley through well-timbered slopes. About 4 p.m. we reached a grassy glade surrounded by fine trees