Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/307

Rh under-edges. Koshtantau shone in its snowy armour, white against black billows of heaped-up storm. Elbruz alone was clear and spotless, and its vastness made it look so close that Zurfluh laughed to scorn my statement that our passes from Mujal to the Bashil Su were between us and it. He maintained and still believes that Elbruz is situated close to Tiktengen, and I defy all the surveyors of the Holy Russian Empire to convince him of error. A yellow look about the snow suggested, it is true, considerable distance, but the huge size and height of the enormous mass so dwarfed the intervening space that I am not surprised at his mistake.

As I declined to give up my seat on the highest point, Zurfluh was constrained to build the cairn, on which his heart was set, on a point slightly lower. Under his fostering care this point grew and waxed strong till it proudly looked over the crest of its rival that, for the last few thousand years, had topped it by a foot. After three-quarters of an hour's halt the furious blasts of the hurricane made us quite willing to move, and at 11.30 a.m. we left the summit. We rattled down the crack, and got back on to the south face without much trouble. Then, however, I distinguished myself by losing the way, and was relegated to the nominally, more important post of last man. Zurfluh with brilliant skill picked up the line of ledges and cracks by which we had ascended, and we duly reached the horizontal